


Certain Arts and Allurements

by EllynNeverSweet



Series: Certain Arts and Allurements [1]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: AU, Crossover, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Magic, Slow Burn, cw brief mention of suicide, daemons AU, magical history au, main couple don't even meet until chapter five, pride and prejudice with daemons, the gardiner-bennet-phillipses: extended family and chaotic coven
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-18 10:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21509293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllynNeverSweet/pseuds/EllynNeverSweet
Summary: Miss Elizabeth Bennet is the respectable daughter of a respectable country gentleman of quite unexceptionable family and connections, except for her uncle in trade, her uncle the attorney — and her maternal grandmother, a formidable foreign lady whose control over her granddaughters’ dowries gives her what Elizabeth’s mother considers to be a thoroughly unwelcome level of interference in their lives. Her mother’s insistence upon guiding the education of the Miss Bennets, in Mrs Bennet’s opinion, threatens to ruin the prospects she worked so tirelessly to provide for her family.The far north, after all, is rumoured to be a place where magic has never faded into obscurity as it has in England these past centuries, and even in quiet, pleasant Hertfordshire there are some who have heard stories of the imperious witch clans of the arctic...AP&Pfic set in an magic-infused AU of Austen’s England, heavily influenced by the universes ofHDMandJS&MN. Featuring occasional cameos from the cast ofJS&MN, and a menagerie of original dæmons to delight and amuse.
Relationships: Elizabeth Bennet & Jane Bennet, Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jane Bennet/Charles Bingley, Lydia Bennet/George Wickham
Series: Certain Arts and Allurements [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1456996
Comments: 76
Kudos: 146





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jane Bennet returns home, in two parts.

In the villages and small towns of England, there is no currency more valuable than news, and no event more exciting than a new entrant into the daily life of the community, especially that part of the community which busies itself in calling, visiting, and dancing. This is especially the case that new entrant is young, gently-reared, and newly in the possession of an inheritance which must make them an object of interest to those who, like themselves, are as yet unmarried. 

Imagine, then, the way the excitement of such an occurrence must naturally be magnified many times over when two notable events of this nature occur at about the same time, as happened in the county of Hertfordshire late in the summer of 1812. 

The first was the return of Jane Bennet, who had spent the previous year with her maternal grandmother in that lady’s home country. Jane had been much missed by the beaus of Hertfordshire, for she was generally acknowledged to the foremost beauty of the shire, and even more so by her sisters, who one and all acknowledged her in her absence as the steady keel of all their family pursuits, and had greatly missed her calm presence in their home. Her sister Elizabeth had missed her especially, and on what turned out to be the day of Jane’s return had been seen walking spring-footed into Meryton, her falcon dæmon turning quick complex circles about her so that he that resembled nothing so much as a slip that had got loose on washing day to tumble about in the air. It might naturally have been expected that she would go to the home of her aunt or another acquaintance, but instead she went directly to the coaching inn and took a fine room for the day. This was unusual behaviour in a young lady alone, and since it seemed to obvious an act to be the beginning of an assignation, and besides, Miss Elizabeth was not known to have any special favourites, it was quickly assumed amongst those who took an interest in matters that Elizabeth must have received a letter advising her of her sister’s imminent return, and that only the necessity of keeping the horses for work in the fields had prevented Mr Bennet from sending his carriage to London to receive his eldest daughter in style. 

Such a long absence to a place no one had heard of in an unmarried girl might have been suspicious, but Mrs Bennet had made a point some years earlier of telling all the matrons of the country how her mother insisted upon _all_ her grandchildren visiting her in order to receive their inheritance in person, and the matrons of that county, many of whom recalled the peculiar manners of the then-Mrs Gardiner when she had been resident in Meryton, had dutifully told their families and acquaintances. So the story had spread, soaking into the web of knowledge that bound each inhabitant of the county, and thus were the reputations of all the Bennet sisters inoculated against the future by their mother. 

Mrs Bennet was greatly concerned for the preservation of her daughters’ reputations, as any mother ought be, but her concern on the matter was compounded by some peculiar conditions that had been imposed many years earlier, at the time of her marriage.

Mrs Bennet liked to think romantically of the days of her courtship and early marriage, as is often the case in those who find themselves somewhat disappointed in later years and who do not like to think their present situation the fault of their younger selves. She had what she considered to be two very good reasons for this rosy view, which reasons she had liked to relate to her daughters since they had been old enough to listen to her. The first was that she had married well — very well, in the eyes of the world, for her husband was a gentleman of good income and property, as well as handsome, intelligent, and sensible, and Miss Gardiner, as she had then been, was, for all her personal beauty and charm, merely the daughter of a country attorney. 

The second reason was that her mother had opposed the marriage. Mrs Bennet was never very clear about the reasons for this opposition when she related to her daughters the manner of her firmness of will and surety of future felicity in convincing her mother to agree to her marriage, and perhaps Mrs Bennet was not altogether sure of what they had been herself, although she believed they had to do with Mrs Bennet’s relative youth in comparison to her husband, and the matter of her husband’s estate of Longbourn being entailed upon the male line. Mrs Bennet had carried the day by somewhat underhanded means, and had been duly married, although Mrs Gardiner had insisted upon having a clause inserted in the marriage articles which determined that any daughters Mrs Bennet might bear were not to enter into any contract of that sort before they reached the age of one-and-twenty, and that were they to do so, those daughters would forfeit their rights to their inheritance from Mrs Gardiner’s property, which portion they would receive upon visiting their grandmother at her own home and staying with her for a season or more. 

The new Mr and Mrs Bennet had been perfectly happy to oblige Mrs Gardiner in this, since the majority of any property inherited must naturally go to their son and heir, save only what Mrs Bennet brought to the marriage, and there could be no harm in keeping a daughter about Longbourn for a few years after she came out, as might be expected in any case. The years went by, and Mrs Bennet, despite her best efforts and no small amount of ingenuity, failed to produce the expected boy, instead producing five daughters in steady succession. She often lamented her promise to her mother then, declaring that her mother had wished her ill-luck in disapproving of her marriage, and chided her daughters to listen to her in all things, lest the same fate befall them. That she had praised her good fortune in marrying well and admired her own strength of purpose in telling them the story of how her marriage came to be, while ending such stories with a command to filial obedience, was a contradiction in morality that did not seem to occur to Mrs Bennet.

Elizabeth, the second of her daughters, had found such stories unsatisfactory, and had often wondered at the reason for her grandmother’s disapproval of her father, for the lady had left Hertfordshire before the birth of her first grandchild, and so none of them had ever met her. When she was very young and in the schoolroom, Elizabeth had secretly determined that her grandmother must be a lady of the French nobility who had fled that country when the king and queen had lost their heads. She based this assumption on the fact that her mother and grandmother, when they communicated at all, did so chiefly in french, and the knowledge that had been imparted to her that her grandparents had met and courted in France and that her grandmother was in some way foreign. When she had grown a little older, and her understanding of the ages of history grew more nuanced than the dates before which she had been born and the dates after, Elizabeth had realised that this could not be the case, as the fall of the _ancien régime_ had occurred at almost the same time as her own birth, and this did not allow time for her own mother’s childhood, or even her marriage. Then she had been as confused as before about her mysterious grandmother, but consoled herself that time and the promised visit — that of her elder sister Jane, if not her own — must shed light on the strange matter.

She had been distressed, therefore, to learn that Mrs Bennet was in the habit of asking her mother, as often as she dared, to amend the conditions of the promised inheritance. Mrs Bennet considered herself and her daughters to be in great danger, for she lived in constant fear that her husband’s untimely death might force them from his estate, and that she would be required to provide for herself and five maiden daughters on the mere two hundred and fifty pounds per annum her marriage portion provided. It would be quite impossible, and it was most heartless of Mrs Bennet’s mother to be so unfeeling towards the future security of her poor granddaughters.

Such pleading was of no use, except to result in Mrs Bennet’s mother restating her position, and adding, by the intermediary of Mrs Bennet’s younger brother, who was on rather better terms with his mother, a stern reinforcement of her feelings on the matter. Mr Gardiner had gentled this message by reminding his sister that he had undertaken to arrange the necessities of travel for his nieces, and promised to escort them in person as far as was practicable, when the time came for the promised visits. 

  


The morning of Jane’s arrival, Elizabeth had awoken to the agitated flutter of wings, and for a moment old habit made her think to ask her sister what the matter was, before she remembered the strange circumstances of the previous days. Patroclus was fluttering at the window, trying to pull back the heavy drapes in a state of high agitation. Elizabeth sprang up in terror, Kari swooping ahead of her, and caught up her dressing gown so she might throw the window open. 

‘What is it?’

‘Jane,’ Patroclus trilled, freeing himself from the drapes, and she looked over him for any sign of illness or injury, and then her heart leapt as she heard, ‘Jane is come, she is come, she is here!’

Elizabeth leaned out to stare down the drive leading to Longbourn, the two dæmons flinging themselves in an excess of joy and incaution from the open window, dark and bright in the small light the candle she lit — but it was dark, and the drive quite, quite empty. No carriage sounded, nor any lantern flared. There was not even the softest crunch of gravel underfoot, of the sort that might be made by a bold rabbit making for the garden in the absence of gardeners.

Kari returned, and settled on her shoulder, rubbing his fine strong head against her cheek in comfort and fussing at the strands of hair that had escaped her braid in the night.

Patroclus gave a cry, and returned, settling on the window.

‘My dear,’ Elizabeth’s dæmon began. 

‘She will come today,’ said Patroclus. ‘I feel it. She will come from the south — it must be from London!’

Sagging with relief, and not a little with exhaustion, Elizabeth settled on the bed again and drew the blankets up, for it was not near enough dawn to be warm. Too suddenly alert to be able to sleep again, she studied Patroclus, who was preening himself in a fit of anxiety, and doubted.

‘She can’t have come to London today, surely. She would have arrived first in Portsmouth, or Newcastle, and then we would have had a letter. Couldn’t you feel her before?’

He looked a little ashamed of himself. ‘I could, but I…I wasn’t precisely sure where she was. I thought it would be better to stay here and wait for her. If you see a person but can’t see their dæmon you might think their dæmon is inside their clothes or something like, but anyone who might who see _me_ and look about without seeing her would wonder at it. But when she came close — I think _she_ must have felt _me_ close and woken up, just as I felt her and woke up.’

He fluttered in a way that suggested he was not quite telling the truth, or, if Jane had been here, might have suggested that _she_ was not quite telling the truth. Elizabeth had never thought this a trait likely to be noticed by anyone outside the family, so she had been content to allow her sister’s dæmon to continue in this habit without correction. Falseness of speech was not _precisely_ a habitual fault in Jane, but she was loathe to inflict her disturbances of mind or emotion on others, and had found early in life, perhaps by the circumstance of being her mother’s eldest daughter, that perfect truth-telling was so often infelicitous to happiness as to render it undesirable, except, perhaps, to Elizabeth. 

She bit her lip. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Of course he’s sure,’ Kari put in with stubborn loyalty. ‘ _I’d_ know.’ 

‘Well, then,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I suppose she will arrive in a post-chaise, if she’s coming from London. We’d better go to Meryton after breakfast.’

A few hours later, Elizabeth and her dæmon stepped quietly out of the house, Patroclus discreetly secure in the depths of her work basket, where he had made a nest among her pieces of mending and old letters. Elizabeth ignored a little pang of guilt at leaving her family so unprepared, but consoled herself with the notion that a welcome party could be arranged within half an hour of Jane’s arrival, and that in any case she was likely to be tired from such a long journey. And, after all, there could be no way to explain how she knew that Jane would arrive that day without explaining that her dæmon had spent a whole month in seclusion in Elizabeth’s bedroom, oceans away from his person and apparently quite at ease, and that Elizabeth, moreover, had informed no one else of that fact. If Jane came at all, that was.

Once she had secured a private room for the day at the coaching inn so that she might welcome her sister in comfort, and left the door cracked for the sake of propriety, Elizabeth had spent most of the morning alternately pacing the floor and gazing out the open window.

Horses and coaches arrived throughout the day, and she studied each lady she saw alight, wondering with each moment of hesitation if it possible to forget the look and manner of her own sister each time she saw someone of about the right height or colouring. When Jane arrived, however, there was no mistaking her, and Elizabeth thought herself ridiculous for ever thinking otherwise. Patroclus gave a stifled, glad little gasp from the within his nest and, snatching it up, Elizabeth hurried down the stairs.

As she had when she had left, Jane arrived carrying a tall, elegant basket draped in a patterned muslin veil, the sort in which a lady’s dæmon might rest comfortably in a public carriage without fear of any unwanted touch. She had sensibly rolled up a scarf in the rough size and shape of Patroclus and inserted it into the basket to give it some weight. Apart from this and a little valise, she carried no other luggage. 

Elizabeth embraced her sister. ‘It is silly,’ she confessed, ‘but I was afraid you wouldn’t come back.’ 

Jane embraced her with one long arm, snaking the fingers of the other inside the lid of the work basket in quiet reassurance, and said, a little thickly, ‘Of course I would come back. Did you think I would abandon you? I could hardly wait to see you. Oh Lizzy, I am so glad. And,’ she drew back, fussing at Elizabeth’s hat, ‘you look so well!’

‘So do you. But — oh!’ Elizabeth started, noticing for the first time the black ribbons adorning her sister’s attire at wrist and waist and neck. ‘What has happened?’ she asked, touching one.

‘Oh!’ said Jane. ‘Nothing at all, do not alarm yourself. It is only that it is the fashion to wear black ribbons where my grandmama comes from. It does not signify.’

‘I think it very grim,’ said Elizabeth, whose taste ran to the many hues of the countryside. ‘But perhaps you found it useful in fending off the enquiries of your fellow travellers. Although,’ she continued with a sly smile, ‘it would be a coup to make Mama happy forever if you managed to become engaged before you set foot in Longbourn again. I comforted myself, you know, by reading your letters over to see if you mentioned the names of any young men, but you were entirely silent on the subject. Not that I am disappointed, only I cannot imagine what sort of society you must have been in to have been so overlooked.’ 

Jane gave her a very rueful look. ‘I suppose I must expect all that and worse. I had hoped…oh, but you do not know. I could not find the right words to write about all of it. Not that there were…well, come inside and let us have some refreshment. It will be my treat, since I am a lady of means now. Is anyone else here?’

They linked arms cordially, and Elizabeth took her sister up to the room she had reserved, and fussed quite unnecessarily about tidying Jane’s things while Patroclus pressed himself against her neck and cheek, murmuring in his hoarse parrot’s voice. When they had done, and tea and some luncheon had been brought up, they sat down to talk.

It _was_ awkward at first, but the awkwardness, which both had half-feared, was less that of meeting a stranger in the place of a sister, and more that of too much to say and feel. Gradually, talking often at cross-purposes and odd tangents, they began to explain all that had happened to each other in the period they had spent apart, and by the time Mr Bennet’s carriage arrived, summoned by a letter from Elizabeth, they had established a scaffold of understanding on which long explanations might be built, and had begun to be quite comfortable with each other again, and the length of the carriage ride, where Jane had a chance to see all that had once been so familiar to her, was enough to make her feel quite grounded and ready to greet the rest of her family. 

  


‘Now, Jane,’ said Mrs Bennet. ‘You must recall that I asked you to work on my mother most earnestly to revise her requirements on you girls not marrying before you reach your majority. Did you do as I asked, and have you succeeded?’

Jane looked a little distressed, and Patroclus, deciding discretion was the better part of virtue, flew up to the rafters, where Mrs Bennet’s pelican dæmon could not easily reach him in the small family breakfast room which served as their parlour. The role of advocate was not altogether foreign to Jane, provided she was convinced of the rightness of the position she championed, but she was by nature averse to conflict, preferring to think uncritically of the motives of everyone she had cause to associate with, and as she had warned her mother before she left, she could not in all honesty promise to press an argument with a lady she had never been acquainted with — a lady who was moreover very much her senior in years, her host, her benefactor, and her ancestress. 

‘I did, but madam she was firm. She did give me the funds she promised you for my portion, and was most gracious in doing so. She asked me to remind you that she has no objection to any… _informal_ understandings being formed, provided any such thing does not interfere with our visiting her and may be broken by the lady without breach of promise.’ This sounded rather nonsensical to her sisters, whose understanding of the standards of courtship was bounded by the propriety of their class, and Jane blushed very heavily, at which Kitty whispered something to Lydia, who giggled. 

‘As she should have! It is a scandalous thing, really, to ask five young ladies to _travel alone_ to the north, to risk Muscovites and ruffian adventurers and panserbjørne and the _French_ , and for a only five thousand pounds! I am quite sure she can afford more. Really I think it is very mean of her, and I always said that she did not understand England or our ways. She will have you all old maids starving in the hedgerows.’ 

‘Five thousand pounds each, madam, and in a stroke she has increased Jane’s portion to match your own,’ Elizabeth interjected. She did not mention that in doing so her grandmother had gifted Jane with more than their father could ever reasonably hope to provide, and that as the funds had been given directly to Jane they would be available to her at once rather than on the death of Mrs Bennet, whose dowry had previously made up almost all the security her daughters could be certain of. 

It was to that topic that Mrs Bennet turned next. ‘I received five thousand pounds from her and my father when I married! I do not see why she should not give you girls the same at least, which it is not at all near is when one accounts for the great increase in the cost of everything from when I was a girl. She might save the expense of your travel and make up the difference in the percents. I am sure your uncle would be willing to make the arrangements for _that_.’

There could be no answer to this from any of her younger daughters, who had never met their grandmother and whose sole understanding of that lady’s position was extracted from Mrs Bennet’s beliefs and recollections, and who in any case did not think that the cost of travel and board could greatly increase such a sum.

Jane said a little diffidently. ‘Madam, you forget that part of her condition was that we go to her to learn what we may not in England. I am thankful to have met her, and our other relatives. I think I should never have had the opportunity to see such things otherwise.’

‘Such danger,’ Mrs Bennet grumbled, but brightened at the sound of a carriage passing and the happy reminders of local gossip such a sound brought. ‘But here, my love, I have not told you _our_ news! There is a great deal of it, you know. Miss Perkyns has married, and your aunt says that Mr Phillips heard from old Mr Morris that he has finally been convinced to allow Netherfield to be let. He has been advertising it, discreetly you know, for some months, and is sure to have an occupant soon. So we shall not want for entertainment, indeed. And at such a good time! You are looking very lovely, my dear, quite blooming.’

From there the conversation passed to all that had occurred in her absence in the surrounding countryside, and so the afternoon passed away without giving Jane further opportunity to tell any stories of her time with her grandmother. Whether she would have liked to was a mystery, though certainly Elizabeth was burning with curiosity after the little she had heard, but she contented herself with the knowledge that she would certainly hear all Jane had to tell over the coming evenings, once they had resumed their custom of holding secret conferences in one or the other of the girl’s bedrooms after retiring for the evening.

  


Elizabeth, out of old habit, reached behind her head into the pillow sham, and, after a moment or two of fussing, drew out a feather, the sort of ordinary goose feather that is found in any good bed, but not quite so fine as so make the very best down. She blew on it, twisted it between her fingers for a moment, and then let go, watching it float into the air over her, rocking lazily as it rose. 

She looked at Jane, who was smiling wistfully at this trick, which she had seen Elizabeth perform a thousand times before. 

‘What?’

Jane shrugged, diffidently. ‘It is is a wonder to me that your pillows are not completely flat a week after you stuff them. When I was away, I was quite put off balance the first time I managed to put on a freshly laundered shift and not find down stuck somewhere inside it.’

Elizabeth laughed. ‘It is a bad habit, I know, but I cannot seem to break it. I suppose it is better than chewing my nails.’ She rolled over. ‘ _You_ cannot find it very remarkable anymore, though. Tell me about the north.’

‘Mmmm,’ Jane said, and plucked a loose petal from the slightly-drooping arrangement that sat on the chiffonier. She blew on it, as Elizabeth had done, and let go, letting it spin gently, wafting rose-tinged air about it as if the window had blown open and let in the scent of the summer evening. Elizabeth was impressed. The feathers of a bird that had flown often were easy to set to flight, since one had only to remind them of what they had been when they were alive, but a petal that had never fallen was another matter entirely. Petals, after all, did not fly.

‘How did you do that?’

Jane leaned conspiratorially close. ‘It is the same trick one uses for travelling by cloud pine. You…hmmm. You have to make the thing you’ve plucked recall the wind coming through the leaves and the petals and setting them dancing. It feels a little like brushing your hair until it stands on end, and then running your hand over it.’

‘Did you really learn to fly by cloud pine?’

Jane looked enthused at this. ‘Of course! It is difficult, but not more so than riding a horse — do not look at me like that, Lizzy, it is your own fault if you will not practise — and you have your dæmon to help you, so that makes it easier. I left mine in London with Uncle Gardiner, though. Mama would have been horribly distressed if I had made such a display of myself coming home in that way. He will send it on with my trunks once they are unpacked from the ship. I am a little sorry I do not know when I will be able to travel about so again, but not so sorry as I am glad to be home.’ She sighed.

Elizabeth frowned at this. ‘Do not be so uncertain. Perhaps you have not heard, for I know that it is a matter of great importance that rumours do not spread beyond England, but the government has sent Mr Strange to the peninsula, and there have been all manner of reports in the papers of how the army has been relying upon him in ways quite unheard of before now. The practise of magic may have been a secret in the past, but it is has become almost a fad now. I am sure it is only a matter of time before it will be seen as quite a respectable pursuit for young ladies, just as it is for gentleman. There are lady writers and lady philosophers now, why not lady magicians? To be sure,’ she continued, ‘it might not be respectable for unmarried ladies, but you will surely be able to remedy that now, if you wish it. Think of how Miss Wollstonecraft spoke about how a lady should be accomplished, so that her children might be properly educated. You would simply need to say that since theoretical magic is now part of any young man’s education, you are making yourself useful to your family.’

Jane laughed at this little speech, which had been delivered with all manner of sly winks and oratorical gestures, and, coaxed so into good humour, spent some time showing Elizabeth the petal trick, until both were satisfied, and it was very late indeed when they finally went to bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The main event, at last. This fic is designed to be independent of the other works in the series, but if you like, you can check out some previous world-building with minor spoilers for the future of this fic at [The Unfix’d Daemon: An Examination of Changing Concepts of Identity in the Georgian Era, From The Enlightenment to the Romantic with the Grosvenor Square Bachelor Pride](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20266567) or see a portrait of the Bennet sisters and their daemons over at [The Unfix'd Daemon: Supplementary Visual Materials](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20846246).
> 
> Feel free to hit me up on tumblr at ellynneversweet.tumblr.com


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mrs Phillips spreads gossip, and Mrs Bennet throws a party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: this chapter contains a very brief mention of suicide during Mrs Bennet and Mrs Phillips’s gossipy discussion. Skip to the next paragraph after the story of the girl with the barley footsteps to avoid.

The second interesting arrival in Hertfordshire at this time, occurring only a few days after the first, was that of a young man previously unknown in the county who expressed a desire to let Netherfield Hall. Netherfield was the nearest and greatest proper neighbour to Longbourn, which was in turn the principle house of the village to which it gave its name, but Netherfield had long been empty of inhabitants, old Mr Morris having gone indefinitely to Bath for his health. Mr Morris had just that summer been persuaded by his friends to consider the possibility of letting his estate, since the cost of maintaining such a place without inhabitants was considerable, but no one very seriously expected such a fretful man to actually permit a tenant to stay there.

The news of the return of Longbourn’s favourite daughter brought many of the family’s friends and neighbours to visit in the following days, and then to go away again full of gossip and speculation. Among the earliest callers at Longbourn at this time were Mr and Mrs Phillips.

Mrs Phillips was the elder sister of Mrs Bennet, and, being childless, was exceedingly fond of her nieces, whom she saw nearly every day. Her dæmon, a flamboyant, noisy cock of considerable energy, was forever to be spotted roosting in the front-facing windows either of Longbourn itself, or those of the pleasant house the Phillipses occupied in Meryton, where he diligently observed the comings and goings of all her family’s neighbours, his head twisting this way and that and causing his wattles to swing. Between her dæmon’s observations, her habit of scrying in the over-brewed in the cups of black tea she drank constantly, an unblushing ability to make the most intimate enquiries on any subject to any acquaintance, and the inevitable employment of her husband in all local business that requiring the drawing up of documents, Mrs Phillips had acquired the deserved reputation of being the most accomplished gossip in the county.

‘My dear Fanny,’ said she to her sister on her second visit, the first having been too full up with questioning Jane over the present circumstances of all those people in her mother’s circle whom Mrs Phillips had ever met or heard of to allow for the sharing of local news on her first, ‘I have something to report which I know you will not have heard of, and which I think excessively pleasing.’

Mrs Bennet was immediately intrigued, and her dæmon, a pelican who had been tucked into the window seat, at once unfurled his neck to lift up his great head to the same height as her own, turning his long beak sideways to gaze at their sister out of a yellow-rimmed eye so that the two heads were surrounded by a conjoining nimbus of sunlight. This diffused through his beak pouch and her piled hair and caused them to resemble nothing so much as one of those illusory pictures of the sort which appears to be a fish when turned one way but when turned the other becomes a fowl. Mrs Phillips preened. 

‘Mr Phillips had a letter yesterday from Bath, and can you guess who from?’

Mrs Bennet could not, although, to do her justice, this was not an easy question to answer. Mr Phillips was, like the late father-in-law whose clerk he had been, an attorney, and as a consequence he might expect correspondence to arrive on his desk from any corner of the earth, or at least from any major town of Great Britain, and more than once from New Copenhagen, across the Atlantic. 

Mr Phillips had never been entirely sure how it was that his wife came to know as much as she did of all that was in his correspondence, for he was, he thought, careful to keep such things discreetly locked away in his study as befitted the dignity of his profession, and, in any case, she never showed the slightest interest in visiting that part of the house. An affectionate man, he did share with her as much as he as he thought appropriate, but this was never above half of what he had cause to know. Nevertheless, in the course of his social duties he quite often found himself confounded by having the details of his clients’ business related to him by people who had heard — they could not now recall just where or from whom — some piece of information or other that he had previously thought known only to himself and his clients, although fortunately this information seemed never to become common knowledge early enough to do him harm. When his wife later discussed such things with him, as she did every bit of gossip she heard in the course of her day, he therefore concluded that she must have come across this information from some third source in her somewhat indiscriminate circle. He had eventually decided to his satisfaction that her source was probably their nieces, who were pretty girls and were waited upon with great interest by his clerks when they all happened to be in his house at the same time, which was often. He himself had been wont at the same age to impress intended sweethearts by sharing such juicy pieces, and so he often entreated these young men to consider the need to be more careful in their work, but never to any lasting effect. 

‘Why, from Mr Morris,’ Mrs Phillips continued. ‘He has already had an expression of interest to let Netherfield Hall, and has said that the house must be made ready for an inspection this very week! That is why Mr Phillips is not here today, for the gentleman in question might come down from London at any time and is not to be missed. His letter suggests that he is most ready to have a good impression made upon him.’

Mrs Bennet was as delighted by this news as any mother of a newly dowered daughter could be, since a man who could afford to rent such an estate _must_ be a gentleman of good income, and _might_ perhaps be unmarried. She therefore quizzed her sister closely, and Mrs Phillips found herself quite torn between the delight she felt in giving teasing oblique answers to an audience within her power, and the contrary urge to share her information with a confidante, especially one who shared so much of her repertoire, so that it might be better dissected. 

This confusion on her part was worsened by the circumstance in which she had chosen to divulge her news, for the two ladies were seated at one end of the sitting room, while the Miss Bennets and two or three friends and all their dæmons darted about the other, chattering and working at such little articles as tended to be made up in company so that the room, with its chinoiserie paper hangings depicting tall trees and grasses, resembled nothing so much as one of the better types of aviary. This was the room in which all but the most intimate visitors to Longbourn were received, and consequentially the largest and best-furnished, but it was not quite large and well-furnished enough that two people might engage in a very private conversation without _any_ concern for their being overheard. 

The urge to relate all she knew soon won out, however, for like many gossips Mrs Phillips treated the dissemination of information as akin to the miracle of the loaves and fishes, wherein no matter how much is said there is always something new to be discovered, and so it was that before the tea had been refreshed for the second time she had informed her sister of every possible particular. These were, that man’s name was Mr Bingley, and that his fortune had been confirmed as having been four or five thousand a year for the better part of a decade by means of a note forwarded from an Edinburgh broker who had had the management of the larger part of his funds since they had belonged to his father. Further, Mr Morris had not at first had not liked Mr Bingley’s proposition, despite his wealth, for it seemed he was a bachelor and quite young, and Mr Morris was fearful of the damage to the property that might result from letting to _that_ sort of person. However, Mr Morris had been mollified to received the reassurance that his prospective tenant had an abundance of female relatives who kept him on terms of perfect civility, and that they would furnish forth one from amongst their ranks to keep the house in good order. The last point, and one which excited perhaps the greatest interest, was that Mr Bingley, despite his broker, was not a Scot, but an Englishman and moreover a native of Yorkshire.

This information provoked a great deal of excitement largely for what might be extrapolated from it. York, despite its great age and venerable history, had been somewhat neglected in recent centuries, but had received a sudden revival in fortune some years earlier in 1807 or thereabouts, when Mr Norrell, now the foremost practical magician in England, had performed several extraordinary feats of magic there, which had been reported in all the major papers to great public interest. That interest might have faded away had he done no more, but Mr Norrell had gone on to perform magic at the request of the government, on several occasions quite foxing Napoleon, and had become a sensation in London, so cementing his position as the object of insatiable curiosity. He had left York behind, but Yorkshire itself received the distinction of being the birthplace of the the great reviver of English magic. 

What was more, this display had been the cause of a complex and ongoing debate amongst most of the major landowners in the north of England and in the rest of the country more generally. This was only vaguely understood by Mrs Bennet and Mrs Phillips, but Mr Bennet and Mr Phillips had discussed it often when they dined together, for there had been some curiosity as to whether this new concern might at all affect the entail which barred Mr Bennet’s daughters from inheriting his estate. The essential point of the debate was that, when in centuries past England had for more than three hundred years been split into the kingdoms of Southern England, ruled by a succession of squabbling Plantagenet cousins, and Northern England, ruled by the ageless changeling magician John Uskglass, certain contracts had been laid down between the land, the trees and the rivers, and those who purported to own those places as the king’s vassals. Those contracts, long thought largely defunct, had been laid out under a piece of fairy-influenced law that restricted the transfer of estates from old owner to new only if that person was the true heir or had vanquished the previous owner, which two states fairies regarded as equivalent. There had been several stories over the centuries which had related the difficulty of securing an estate bound by such conditions. In one such case, a young man whose mother had been rather too free with her affections in the course of her marriage had ridden out of his estate after the death of his father to go visiting, and on his return found that the drive was grown over with briars and would not allow him back in. In another, the squire had been an only child of fifteen or sixteen who had been thrown from his horse and died, leaving no closer heir than three or four second cousins by way of his grandfather’s many half-siblings. The High Court in London, which had by then the keeping of such duties in the aftermath of the annexation of the North, had ruled on the case and awarded the estate to the claimant they judged to have the best claim, a dignified and wealthy man of middle years who coincidentally kept a London solicitor on retainer, only for the crops to wither in the fields for three summers until _his_ cousin, a penniless young woman who had been left with no option but take employment as a governess in a neighbouring county, had returned to visit some friends and lost a shoe taking a shortcut across the swampy fields, whereupon she found barley beginning to spring up in her bare footsteps. In another, darker case, a gentleman who had fallen into debt had sold his property, and died shortly thereafter. The gentleman’s heirs, who were themselves in a state of some pecuniary embarrassment, had disputed the validity of the sale, alleging that the purchaser had mixed henbane into the gentleman’s posset, and that the gentleman, who had in truth been very ill and desperate, had observed this and drunk it down, so that the purchaser might be considered the rightful owner of the land by means of conquest. That case had not made it to judgement by a court, for the heir’s friends had explained to him if this was truly the case, the dead gentleman’s actions might be judged an act of self-murder, in which case all his property would be forfeit and the heir would be left with nothing but lawyers bills and scandal, and besides, the estate showed no signs of rejecting its purchaser. 

None of these cases had occurred more recently than a century ago, but the study of them had been revived in recent years, for there was great concern among those who either held land or would like to do so that Mr Norrell’s actions might mean a return to this unsettled state of affairs. To make matters worse, there had for some unknown reason been a sharp decline in the number of theoretical magicians in the north of England in recent years, and as the proper person to appeal to in such a case was just such a one, the wealthy and landed gentlemen of that part of the country had found themselves quite unable to avail themselves of advice as to the proper disposal of their estates except under the very strictest of circumstances. 

All this was of little interest to Mrs Bennet and Mrs Phillips, except in one particular. Mr Bingley was a young man of the north, of recent money if his choice of an Edinburgh broker was any guide, and not, apparently, of any property, or at least not sufficient property to supply his needs. If he was a man of sense he would not be induced to buy an estate in his home country when such a place might decide of its own accord not to belong to him after all, after he had given away all his money. Rather, he would settle in the south, where the land did not generally need to be consulted for its opinion of its master, for while magic had certainly been known in the south, the land itself it had never been ruled by magicians. If he was a man of _good_ sense he might wish to make himself quite safe in his investment by marrying a lady whose family hailed from the same shire as his new estate, and, as Mrs Bennet told her sister, Mr Morris was getting no younger. 

  


Mrs Bennet very soon determined, the next assembly being nearly three weeks away, that the best way to deal with such a sudden and by no means unwelcome interest in her eldest daughter was to arrange an impromptu gathering herself, and a date was settled upon within a week of Jane’s return to which all their acquaintance were invited. Naturally enough, the preparations required to host such an event only increased the quantities of people and general busyness to be found in every corner of Longbourn. The crowded conditions were enough to drive Mr Bennet, who was not the most sociable of men, to sport and rambling with a fervour not seen in him since his eldest daughters had been young enough to have dæmons that changed a dozen times an hour, and he became accordingly absent for whole days at a time, only returning in the evening for dinner and disappearing to his study at once afterwards. 

This decision on her mother’s part had the unusual effect of delighting Mrs Bennet’s youngest daughter most of all, and raised Lydia Bennet’s ecstasy at Jane’s return to almost equal that of Elizabeth. This might have been thought a little peculiar by those who knew Lydia well, for though she was in all ways a most open and affectionate creature, she was possessed of the natural self-absorption of a girl of fifteen years who had never been displaced as her mother’s favourite, and so was rather spoilt, regarding herself as the appropriate recipient of all her family and friends’ attention. 

However, Lydia had one great unhappiness at this point in time, and that was that she, alone of her sisters, was not out. Her next eldest sister, Kitty, had until recently shared her lot, but Kitty’s dæmon Anselmi had settled a few months after Jane’s departure, in the form of a pink hummingbird who buzzed constantly about her coiffure. Kitty had paid Maria Lucas a box of salted toffee to paint a watercolour of her dæmon to send to Jane, and, as soon as Mrs Bennet and Kitty felt sure of this state of affairs, and rather sooner than Mr Bennet thought wise, a luncheon had been held at Longbourn to celebrate such a momentous occasion. Even then Lydia had been, if not entirely content with things, pleased for her nearest sister to enjoy such an honour. But the six months which law and custom held to be necessary for surety had elapsed, and Kitty had been permitted to attend her first assembly two months ago, while Lydia had been sent to Lucas Lodge to spend an evening sulking with Maria and the other Lucas children, and then been obliged to repeat this humiliation a second time. 

She had bewailed the unfairness of it at great length, for, as she said, it hardly mattered that the law said a lady might marry six months after her dæmon settled if her parents gave permission, for Mr and Mrs Bennet would not, _could_ not oblige any of their daughters in that way on account of her grandmama’s cruelty. It was unfair to deny Lydia such enjoyment when her sisters had no more prospect of making a match than she did under such constraints, and yet they were permitted to go and dance and chat and flirt, while she alone must be excluded for who knew how long. In vain had Elizabeth and Mary pointed out, with good humour, stern lectures and dull sermons in turn, that the fault lay not in their parents (and this _was_ true, for Mrs Bennet would certainly have allowed Lydia to go to an assembly if she had dared) but with the strictures of society. Society allowed ladies who had not come into their inheritance to be out, for poverty was an acceptable defect, if it was genteel. It did _not_ allow girls whose dæmons changed half a dozen times in a day to do the same, for girls who did not yet know their own minds were not fit to choose a husband, and no true gentleman would even consider such a prospect even for the length of a dance. 

Still, Mrs Bennet was unable to bear her daughter’s pleading with equanimity, and so she pushed the boundaries of propriety as far she dared, allowing Lydia to attend luncheons and private dinners and to dance at informal gatherings in the homes of their friends whenever some young lady or other decided to strike up a tune. This, rather than mollifying Lydia, had mostly had the effect of causing her to redouble her pursuit of such employments, and so Elizabeth had told Jane rather explosively one evening after Mrs Bennet had announced her intention.

  


Time passed with rather more than its usual speed during that period, for there was a great deal to be done, and in what seemed scarcely more than the blink of an eye the date of the celebration was upon them. This being a rural event, it was not the most formal or fashionable of assemblies, and nothing like so well defined as a London gathering, where cards are sent out that lady so-and-so or sir such-and-such requests the recipient at his or her dinner, crush, ball, or rout. If pressed for a definition, a fashionable person might kindly have remarked that it was to be a sort of informal _conversazione_ , but in truth it was that most chimerical and unfashionable of things, a true country party. The sort, that is, where rustic music on the pipe, piano and fiddle is provided by those local masters who taught the children of the surrounding neighbourhoods, perhaps assisted by such of the young ladies who had the talent and inclination to present their accomplishments, the refreshments are an excellent informal buffet table guaranteed by the hostess’s reputation for good housekeeping, plenty of punch is drunk, and settees and carpets are pushed aside to make space to dance by those who wished to practice their steps.

It _might_ be be supposed that the arrival of a young lady of wealth and beauty into a neighbourhood could be cause for discontentment amongst her fellows. This indeed is very commonly supposed by by gentlemen in particular, who are often of the opinion that young women are eaten up with jealousy whenever one of their number is distinguished in some way. While this _is_ sometimes the case, for it is true that a certain disparity exists between the numbers of beautiful, accomplished, sweet-tempered young ladies in the world, of which there are many, and those whom society deems to be their equals amongst gentlemen, which is to say any man under sixty of good income and acceptable temperament, of whom there are sadly rather less, such was not the situation in the case of Jane Bennet.

In the first place, Jane had long been known in the neighbourhood as being the kindest of girls, and her joy at any success and sympathy at any sorrow were such that nobody in her circle of acquaintance could fairly judge her as being undeserving of any happiness she might one day obtain for herself. Secondly, Jane had always been beautiful, and moreover came from a line of beautiful women, so it would have been no less a surprise than a disappointment to the people of Hertfordshire to find that she had at all lessened in looks in her absence from home. Thirdly, she was a gentleman’s daughter, and such persons are expected to be rich, or at least to have a ready flow of money. Finally, any woman, no matter how beautiful and wealthy she may be, can, after all, only have one husband, and by the economic theory expounded in the parlours of small towns across Britain it was reckoned that an amiable lady, likely soon to be married to some likely gentleman of means who either would be or could be persuaded to his wife’s sociable temperament, would, on balance, tend to produce an increase in the number of gentlemen of that sort in the region, rather than a reduction.

Jane was much admired at the assembly, adorned with a wreath of flowers in her pale hair, and bright woollen embroidery of an exotic turn on her sash and shawl that had been done in shades of purple and blue to match her dæmon, who was a hyacinth macaw as blue as spilled ink. There was a great deal of general curiosity as to the amended nature of her dowry, since it was generally understood that old Mrs Gardiner (this being the term used to distinguish Mrs Bennet's mother from Mrs Bennet’s sister-in-law, an occasional visitor to Meryton), had promised a bequest to each of her granddaughters upon their majority, provided they visited her at that time. Exactly what the nature of the bequest had turned out to _be_ , however, remained a mystery for some time, for Jane, smiling, turned the conversation to everything she had missed in her absence, and got down to the business of promising visits to new brides and babies and newly out ladies everywhere they were owed. Her mother, meanwhile, assiduously put the number about, so that, without Jane’s ever saying so herself, by halfway through the evening it was understood that Jane now had enough for a modest but respectable independence.

At such an assembly as this, fashions in dæmons as well as in dress might be seen amongst the various people gathered there. Elizabeth delighted in making sketches of character, and as a consequence particularly enjoyed drawing conclusions as what special insight into a person’s character and background might be discerned by considering what was generally known of a person, and seeking to discover the way in which these traits were reflected or refuted by the shape and manner of their dæmon. 

Some of this was straightforward. Amongst those gently-born men whose dæmons had settled twenty or more years ago, the philosophies that had prevailed prior to the french regicides might clearly be seen. Their dæmons were as large and proud as might be allowed by the various forms which education and temperament had bestowed upon them. Mr Bennet quite eclipsed his neighbours in this, for his dæmon was a brown she-bear with an intelligent expression and lazy attitude who stood well above Mr Bennet’s waist on four paws, and could reach up into the very rafters on the rare occasions she chose to stand on two. Their wives, for the most part, had dæmons shaped rather like domestic cats, of every possibly colour and length of coat, which forms they took in petite imitation of the big-cat dæmons which had been in vogue amongst both sexes in the aristocracy of England since the crusade of the first Richard, and which were very nearly as mandatory in that class of person as court dress was at St James’s Palace. 

Those half-gentlemen and successful tradesmen who helped to give something of the feeling of a crush to a country gathering, meanwhile, tended towards elegant if somewhat parochial rural forms which reflected the countryside in which they had grown up. In some cases, such as that of Sir William Lucas and his badger dæmon, and his lady wife with her nervous little red squirrel, these forms betrayed origins somewhat more humble than their persons might wish to have assumed from their present improved circumstance. 

Amongst the guests present of the Misses Bennet’s generation, a minor explosion had taken place. Gone was the uniformity desired in their parents’ generation, and in its place, encouraged somehow by some confluence of new philosophical thought and the exciting discoveries being made in the New World by explorers and experimental theologians, was a positive riot of dæmon forms. To have a dæmon distinct not only by colour of coat or eye, but by classified type, to be able to definitively state the form one’s dæmon took in terms of _genus_ and _species,_ had become a positive mark of accomplishment and improvement of mind, and all those who wished to be seen as a someone of more than common understanding yearned for a form which which was somehow out of the common way. Ladies dæmons, who so often kept themselves decorously small for convenience, now came in every form of twittering songbird that could be dreamed of, or else were elegant lizards, or bright snakes, or even, for those ladies who were daring and likely to marry young, tiny jewel-like frogs who sat upon their shoulders and bosoms on special broaches surmounted by velvet pads that might be discreetly wetted for their comfort in a hot drawing room. Gentlemen’s dæmons tended to be a different sort, for they had not entirely rid themselves of their fathers’ desire to sweep a room clear before their dæmon’s progress. Their dæmons might be odd monkeys with bright patterned faces, or else powerful mustelids of some sort, or deer with queer horns and striped hides. 

Rectors and gentlemen of a small fortunes and consequential early scholarly pursuit, by contrast, took an especial pride in demonstrating their inquiring natures and superiority of accomplishment by securing a form for their dæmon which resembled some member of the insect kingdom which that gentleman had himself identified for those parts of experimental theology which some papers liked to term the sciences. Their dæmons were often so tiny they might not have been seen at all, save for the manner in which they were inevitably carried about like badges on the collars which served as a mark of office for gentlemen of the church. 

Those whose dæmons had not yet settled, for Lydia Bennet was far from the only young lady to be quietly allowed to attend such a private gathering, despite a dæmon who changed upon the hour, were perhaps even busier than their older siblings and cousins in pursuit of this fashion. Where such young persons might once have been put to reading conduct manuals in the course of their studies, nowadays they would seek to spend every spare minute pouring over illustrated journals and pamphlets that described every species known to man in minutest detail, making illuminations and paper cut-outs of those animals which took their fancy, and, if their circumstances permitted, visiting exhibitions and menageries where creatures of all sorts were displayed, as Jane and her sisters had done with whenever they had chanced to stay in London with their Uncle Gardiner. If circumstances did not permit, they could at least walk often in the woods and wild places about the countryside, and listen and look at all manner of creatures. This form of exercise had been greatly encouraged by Mr Bennet, although he had rarely walked about with his younger daughters as he had with his elder two, especially Elizabeth, whose own childhood dæmon had spent hours stalking birds through tree canopies. Such education had begun to be considered essential, for, while a baby or small child’s dæmon could take almost any form, real or imaginary, by the time a child had reached the age of reason their dæmon would generally only take the form of an animal they had seen directly, or at the very least had observed well illustrated and described, or, better yet, stuffed.

In addition to all the ladies and gentlemen of their circle, a society of about two dozen families of good birth and manners, Elizabeth liked to study the local people of the county, those tenant farmers with their ox and duck and dog dæmons. Most frequently the Bennets enjoyed the society of their near neighbours, the Lucases, who had been newly raised to the gentry by the elevation of Mr Lucas to Sir William some years earlier, and the settled dæmons of the adult Lucases all took the form of elegant animals of the English countryside, despite Sir Lucas’s efforts with his children, some of whom had been very young when he had received his knighthood. The eldest daughter, Charlotte, Elizabeth’s particular friend, had a dæmon in the form of a sharp-eyed and tidy red fox, whom she tended to carry about on her shoulders in heavy company rather as if he were a tippet. 

Elizabeth fancied she had deduced some more insights than were commonly understood as mere fashion, although she was aware that the nature of dæmons was a subject of constant discussion and subtle disagreement amongst clergymen, scientists, and magicians. She had noticed that younger sons, especially those of the lower classes, often had dæmons which took the form of some dog or other; that ladies dæmons often took the form of an animal of the same genus but seperate species to their sisters; that those who had rabbit dæmons were gently shy but fond of company while those with hare dæmons were reckless; and that courting couples seemed most likely to marry and be happy when some point of similarity could be found between the two natural creatures represented, such as a shared habitat or style of hunting or socialising, although she had once or twice observed some puzzling contradictions of this last which she had not yet been able to make out to her own satisfaction.

The party had been going on for some time when Elizabeth noticed an odd-looking stranger amongst the guests present, facing away from her and nodding cordially to someone she could not see. His dress was that of a gentleman, a little wilted as though he had been busy all day and not yet changed, but his dæmon’s form was that of a dog, like that of a working man. A beautiful dog, to be sure, quite large, with long silken feathers on her ears and tail and hocks, and a coat that gleamed as red-gold as a new guinea, but nevertheless they could not help but present an incongruous picture together. His clothes were very new and perfectly tailored to his figure, which was pleasant if not overly tall, so they must be his, and his manner was not that of a successful merchant, who might have afforded such clothes. He must, she decided, be an extraordinary self-effacing man for his dæmon to look so, or else very young and perhaps not quite settled, and a little uncertain in a room full of strangers. Yet he did not appear at all uneasy in company, as might be expected of a person whose unsettled dæmon had assumed such a gently appeasing form. 

She was on the verge of pointing out this interesting mystery to one of her acquaintance, and perhaps directing Kari to the rafters so they might get a better look — a notion he dismissed with a noise of disgust and a motion clearly indicative of the difficulty of taking flight in such an gathering without brushing against one of the guests — when the mystery was presented to her for close inspection by none other than her Uncle Phillips, preceded by his nanny-goat dæmon self-importantly butting other dæmons out of the way of her man.

‘Lizzy,’ said he, drawing close and planting an avuncular kiss on her cheek. ‘Do help me, my dear. I have just arrived with Mr Bingley, as you see — come here sir and let me present you — Elizabeth, this Mr Bingley who is to take Netherfield, Mr Bingley, my niece Miss Bennet —‘

‘Second of that name,’ said Elizabeth laughingly, and offered her hand to shake, pleased to see that he did so easily. His face was quite as pleasant as his figure, handsome without being striking, but with a certain gentle crease to it that suggested he was often pleased by the world. Her free hand she lifted automatically to her shoulder, lowering her falcon dæmon to a more appropriate height with all the grace of old habit in order to greet Mr Bingley’s pretty golden bitch. Her name, it transpired, was Miranda, which Kari informed her of as soon as he made his way back to his customary perch atop her hussar’s cape. 

‘There we are. I have been trying to introduce Mr Bingley around but I confess I cannot keep the names of the young Lucases straight, and I know you will make a neater job of it. I wonder if you know where my brother is?’

Mr Bingley put in at this that they had met Mr Bennet that very day, quite by chance when he had arrived to inspect Netherfield and heard Mr Bennet out shooting in the part of Longbourn’s wooded park which abutted that of Netherfield. He had been thoroughly pleased by Mr Bennet, whom he thought one of the pleasantest gentleman he had ever met, and who had invited him hence after a half-hour’s polite conversation. Happily, Elizabeth was well enough used to her father’s eccentricities of manner to keep from betraying the fact he had not informed his family of this invitation, and so Mr Bingley was allowed to continue in this pleasant impression of his host’s considerate nature. 

‘And,’ said Uncle Phillips, ‘for some reason your little sisters always act as though I am going to quiz them on mathematics at parties. Young ladies will avoid a fusty old uncle when there is fun to be had, I am afraid,’ he put in to Mr Bingley. Elizabeth felt her cheeks grow quite hot at her uncle’s obvious inference, for Mrs Bennet had regaled her daughters with their aunt’s news as soon as she could manage to do so privately, but Mr Bingley merely agreed to this, genially offering that he had several sisters and they would act quite the same in such a case. Parties were for making new acquaintance, after all, not humouring such family members as one saw every day, so there was nothing to be done for it. Was she the Miss Bennet so recently returned from abroad?

Elizabeth was forced to admit she was not. Miss Bennet was dancing in the next room, but Elizabeth said she would be happy to introduce him to Jane once she had finished with her present partner. Mr Bingley scoffed good-naturedly at this, and said eagerly that if there was dancing he would be most happy to join in such an activity, if Elizabeth would agree to partner him for the next set — although of course he would not wish to be less than courteous to Miss Bennet, who was, after all, the guest of honour, and whose acquaintance he hoped he might make as soon as was practical. Elizabeth was very ready to oblige him in this, for the natural consequence of the past few days had been that on more than one occasion that evening Jane had disappointed some of those who had asked her to dance by being already engaged for the next set, and a few of those gentlemen had had the bad grace to turn immediately to Elizabeth and ask her hand instead. Her vanity had been very slightly pricked at these inferences that she had been sought by way of consolation rather than preference, and it therefore pleased her greatly to think that she might be the first in all the county to dance with an eligible new arrival. 

Uncle Phillips disappeared in search of his brother. Mr Bingley led Elizabeth to the dance after she pointed him the right way, and Elizabeth seized upon Mr Bingley’s mention of his sisters as a point of commonality. He spoke very freely, and so it was, that without much effort at all, Elizabeth managed to learn as much about Mr Bingley in the course of one set as Mrs Bennet and Mrs Phillips might have managed to speculate about in an entire afternoon’s talk. He had, he said, four sisters, the eldest married to a London gentleman, the next presently at their house in York, and the youngest two at school in that same city, the daughters of his stepmother — of whom he was as fond as he might have been of the lady who had borne him, for he did not remember the latter at all. The York home was a town house which had been in the possession of the family since his grandfather’s day, but, though he had very fond memories of his childhood there, it was not quite the thing for entertaining in the way he wished to. He had been at school in London, and had made a great many acquaintance there whom he owed debts of hospitality to, some of those debts several years old. He meant to discharge them in style. This was clear enough encouragement for Elizabeth to ask if he _really_ meant to take Netherfield, or whether her uncle had perhaps been a little premature in his introduction, as she privately feared. It would not do to let him think that the family conspired to bring him into the county by means of spreading rumours that might engage him as a matter of honour, and she could not see how a decision could be made in one afternoon whether to let such a large property. His family and friends, she thought, must surely want to be consulted in the matter.

‘Indeed I shall,’ he declared. ‘I was excessively pleased with the place, and I make a point to never hesitate when I find myself presented with a good opportunity. I take it as a great sign that I should happen to come here on a date when I should have the opportunity to meet so many pleasant people, for, you know, I did not decide to come here today until yesterday morning. Although,’ he added, ‘when I heard that Mr Phillips had put off his arrival at his engagement here in order to show me about I was a little shamefaced to have so inconvenienced him. I hope your family will forgive me for it.’

Elizabeth assured him that they would forgive him as soon as they knew of his trespass upon their entertainment, and, as the dance had by then ended, took the opportunity to prove her assessment correct by introducing him to Jane. Jane, rosy-cheeked and bright eyed, was rather curious to meet him, for she had seen Elizabeth going down the dance with a stranger in their own home and had not known at all what to make of it. She assured Mr Bingley that she was very happy to make his acquaintance, and just as happy to forgive him his boldness, but she had no more time for conversation, for even as they spoke Mary Bennet had gone to the pianoforte with a proprietary air in order to play for the assembled party, no longer able to bear seeing the instrument in hands other than her own, and had struck up the opening bars of a complicated reel.

Mr Bingley tried more than once that evening to secure a dance with Jane, but all in vain, for he had come too late. Instead, he satisfied himself with dancing with Kitty and shaking hands with Lydia, who had jointly begged an introduction almost as soon as they could make their way to Elizabeth, and then with Charlotte Lucas, whom Elizabeth, wishing to secure a more measured second opinion, had somewhat pointedly introduced to him. 

‘Well, Lizzy,’ said Mr Bennet, coming to stand beside her, his presence marked by the little pool of quiet that was the natural consequence of so huge a dæmon as his own. ‘And how do you like the fine, fat, fish I have caught you?’

Elizabeth turned to him with a smile, and asked what he meant. 

‘Why, our new neighbour, of course. I did not intend to meet him today, but I confess when the opportunity presented itself, I thought it would be no more than was civil and correct to invite him here. Besides, he is pleasant, and wealthy, and talks a great deal of nonsense, which I believe is all that young women look for in young men nowadays. Have you reeled him in yet?’

Elizabeth laughed at this. ‘Sir, you begin to sound like my mother, save that _she_ would not be so partial as you are. How could _I_ reel him in? I am hardly the most fitting candidate if you wish to give him as a particular present to one of your daughters. I appreciate the gesture, I assure you, but I think he may be too fast for the likes of me. I know little of all that young men look for in young ladies, it is true, but surely _you_ may guide me as to whether a man who settles on the taking of an estate in a single afternoon might — or even ought! — be induced to endure a long courtship?’ 

Mr Bennet chucked her chin at this, and asked why she thought he must be made to endure anything of the sort. ‘For I do not see that five thousand need be any greater attraction than one thousand, to a man with that sort of income. You might marry him at once, and beg your grandmother’s forgiveness later. If she is not inclined to give it, it would not matter overmuch then. And just think, you would be most conveniently placed to visit your poor Papa in his dotage.’

‘Oh yes,’ Elizabeth said, very archly, for a much-discussed subject had become apparent to her beneath her father’s teasing, one which they had never agreed upon. Mr Bennet did not like to travel, and, though he had never said so in as many words, did not like the thought that he must be grateful to his wife’s family for his daughters’ security, though he was a gentleman and his wife’s family merely in trade. When Jane had been nearly twenty, he and his wife had neatly reversed their previous positions. Where she had previously complained of her mother’s inconsiderate nature, she had now begun to praise her mother’s kindness, and declare her relief to know her daughters would be provided for, though she could only wish it could all be settled rather sooner. He, on the other hand, had been possessed of the common fatherly failing in which parents imagine their little girls will, in defiance of all evidence to the contrary, somehow continue in their childlike state forevermore, and never become ladies with their own destinies to consider. So long as he had been able to persist in this happy delusion he had been content to think that there could be nothing much wrong in his far-away adult daughters putting themselves to a little trouble in order to keep such peace as might be found, but when the appointed time had drawn near, he had begun to fret at the thought of sending them so far away, where they could not possibly rely on his protection. It had been too late by then for him to consider the possibility of making economies that would render such cordial acquiescence to his mother-in-law’s wishes entirely unnecessary, however, and so he had not attempted it, and neither had he attempted any other course of action that might bend events to his will. To be separated from Jane had been hard, but the knowledge that he would be separated from Elizabeth had now begun to seem almost unbearable. 

All this Elizabeth knew, and had endeavoured not to see. ‘That would be very fine of me. Jane endures all manner of hardship and danger, and does not even receive the first bite of the apple! And if you say to me that she has _not_ endured hardship or danger, but a pleasant tour of fine strange country in new and interesting society, then you would mistreat me in seeking to deprive me of my own right to such enjoyment. It cannot be logically argued, and so the notion must be done away with as being nonsensical. Well, sir. I am fixed. I resolve I will not have him.’ She said this teasingly, but beneath her good humour she was quite serious. She had liked Mr Bingley’s society, certainly, but it seemed to her that she had found enough to criticise in him in a few hours interrupted discussion such that _were_ she properly entangled with him, she would quite soon be ready to judge him rather seriously, and from there be constantly driven to seek to direct him in the course she thought most appropriate. No, such attempts could only lead to frustration and resentment. 

As for Mr Bennet, he was not in the least pleased by this declaration. His powers of subterfuge were significant, but he had often enough sharpened his wits against Elizabeth’s that she was not easily taken in when made the object of such attempts. He could do nothing to amend things, however, for as the evening began to wind up, Mr Bingley recalled at the first sound of carriage wheels crunching on gravel that he had quite neglected to tell inform his servant whether or not they were to return to London, and it was now so late that it was not wise to attempt such a journey in only a curicle. He therefore covered his embarrassment and declared that he would stay the evening at the coaching inn, so that he might more rapidly resolve the details of the lease contract with Mr Phillips in the morning, and so it was that with very little ceremony, Netherfield Hall was let at last. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really ‘chapter one: part two’, but it threatened to be so long I had to chop it up and then still turned out...really long. My computer and internet access is a unfortunately patchy at the moment on account of a truly massive storm yesterday and subsequent and still-ongoing multi-suburb-wide power outage while I was finishing this, so please forgive me if it turns out I’ve left any truly awful editing errors in this chapter. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr at ellynneversweet.tumblr.com where I occasionally post WIP snippets for future chapters, so come and visit.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Bennets gossip a great deal, and very little is achieved

The Bennets breakfasted very late the next morning, for the previous evening’s party had broken up irregularly in the manner of such gatherings, and many of their guests had stayed very late indeed. This delay in their family gathering had the peculiar result of Mary Bennet arriving at table at almost at the same time as her sisters — albeit with her curl papers hastily disguised under a cap — rather than being the very last to arrive, as was normally the case. Her dæmon, Paris, hunched carelessly on her shoulder, his owl head tucked with resolute sleepiness under his wing. Mary braced him against the curve of her neck with the book she held in one hand, the other kept free to disguise a yawn. Paris was not at his best in strong light, which hurt his eyes, and Mary, who had always been prone to late hours, had for some years now been accustomed to studying far past the usual bedtime of her sisters.

The book disappeared under the table as she seated herself between her father and Kitty, and after a moment’s meditation she began carefully to apply herself to the preserves scattered upon the table before her, most of which had been left uncovered by her sisters’ design to better accomodate the variety of preferences gathered at the table. Kitty broke off her sticky contemplation of these to refresh her tea cup, and after this task had been completed, prepared a cup for Mary. Her hummingbird dæmon flitted about the service in anticipation of her hands as she measured out milk and sugar, and darted at Paris with shrill instructions to wake up that persisted in spite of his sleepy protests until he raised his head, blinking furiously, and snapped at Anselmi, the twin tufts of feathers on the crown of his head ruffled into asymmetry. This had no effect at all, save to make Kitty demand she drink up, and Mary was obliged to drink her tea, grimacing at the heat of the cup, and complain between sips that Kitty ought learn to take coffee instead. Lydia, sitting at her mother’s elbow as they dissected the previous evening, her dæmon prowling the table in the shape of a washing-bear in order to to snatch up any the articles of the meal they particularly wished for, interposed a complaint that this was unfair, for _she_ was only allowed tea, and surely no one would even bother to prepare it if she was the only one left to want a cup in the morning. Mrs Bennet retorted fondly that this was an absurd slight upon her household management, and further that Priam ought not wander all over the table like some mannerless urchin, and neither of them paid the least attention to Kitty’s protest that she did not like coffee at all, and could not see how anyone else did. 

Paris’ tawny head drooped again, but as this was almost certainly a sign that Mary had propped her book open that they might read under the table, her family left off their attentions, unwilling to hold off their conversation until Mary or Mr Bennet felt equal to joining in. _He_ had disappeared behind the morning’s papers, Mrs Bennet never having been able to persuade her husband out of reading at the table in the morning, no matter how much much she pointedly lectured her daughters on the subject, and, were it not for the great bulk of his bear dæmon lying behind him, her thick dark fur rising and falling with their occasional comments to one another upon the latest news, Mr Bennet might have been thought completely insensible of his surroundings.

Elizabeth and Jane sat beside each other and their father, Elizabeth so that she might pick over whichever of the papers and pamphlets he received that he was not presently reading, and Jane because her habits of attentive grace had, almost from her earliest years, permitted her entry into delicate atmosphere that surrounded any person whose dæmon was of such a size as her father’s. It was not that Hypatia lacked delicacy in manner or carriage any more than Mr Bennet did himself, but rather that the same attitudes of social deference which had inculcated in him a natural understanding of his own importance as a gentleman had equally as naturally given rise to a settled form which which reflected and demanded that which was due to him from society. As the form of a gentleman’s dæmon sprung from such habits of self-regard, so must her manner likewise express an understanding of being first in all her usual society. Longbourn, like any true gentleman’s estate, had the generous proportions required to accomodate such a man’s needs, as indeed it had done for generations of occupants, but even in such a space, care must be taken by those about him to respect the natural restriction every person felt against the possibility of touching another’s dæmon.

As for Elizabeth and Jane, _their_ dæmons chose, as they usually did at meals, to perch upon the backs of their chairs, rather than upon their persons, and in this manner occasionally commented to one another upon the goings on about them and the anticipated business of the day. Though not nearly of a size with Hypatia, they each were in their own way large and heavy, and not always altogether able to avoid scratching delicate female flesh through the thin fabric of a muslin dress if they were required to perch upon a shoulder without any protection. The sliding fabric of a loose wrapper was no better than a gauzy fichu on this front, such a garment being equal in comfort and instability. The heavier and more structured layers of outdoor dress paradoxically permitted greater ease and closeness, but in the warmer confines of breakfast room and sitting room it was more usual for both dæmons to make use of the variety of perches which had naturally accumulated as the Bennet daughters had grown into adults with their own requirements. 

Such caution seemed the more natural on Elizabeth’s part, for her falcon dæmon was was almost too sleek to be considered handsome. The speckled grey plumage he had displayed when he had initially settled had grown fainter over the years as they had grown to true adulthood, and had in time given way to a stark white plumage which was barely relieved by the dark tips of his pinions and the touch of warm yellow on the cere at the base of his beak, and none of this offered any disguise at all to his sharp attributes, which were the pale blue-grey of snow shadow. Patroclus, whose plumage was a subtly variegated deep blue that seemed to invite closer contemplation, and whose smiling yellow-ringed eyes mirrored Jane’s own mild expressions, was the more usually beautiful of the two, but his own beak and talons were quite as capable of delivering a mark. 

Jane had remarked privately to Elizabeth that this had been a most unexpected benefit of their separation, for her dæmon had not quite the same agility as her sister’s, and while Kari’s effortlessly tumbling flight allowed him to take wing and alight again almost anywhere he might wish, Patroclus had often been obliged to rest on her gloved wrist in company, lest they be too far apart in a wide-open assembly room. This was of limited facility in the present circumstances, however, for an ability to seperate beyond a circumscribed range from one’s dæmon was not usual, and the appearance of normality must be yet preserved before their wider acquaintance. Elizabeth had not been able to disguise Patroclus’ seperate appearance from their family without a good deal of concern and fear as to what might have caused such a terrible injury to her sister, though this had been a little eased by the way in which she had been accustomed to speak interchangeably to Jane and her dæmon since her earliest childhood, which had in turn allowed her to converse with Patroclus alone with something like candour. This worry was now past, but still of present concern were the events of the previous evening, when several times Jane and her dæmon had realised with alarm that, absent the warning pull they had been used to feel, they were in danger of wandering too wide in pursuit of all that they had wished to see of the changes to their native society. Jane had not yet found a convenient moment to discuss this change with her parents, but had resolved to do so that day. 

Mrs Bennet, who remembered very well how her own mother had been possessed of such an ability, at least might be hoped to take it without surprise, though her ability to receive such a confession with calmness of manner was more doubtful. Mr Bennet’s opinion on the matter was less easy to predict. He had little interest in magic beyond what an educated man might be expected to know, and regarded the practice of magic, as opposed to the study of it, with the distaste of a man who remembered fondly a time when only the latter had been a respectable pursuit for persons of quality. 

The conversation at the upper end of the table now turned, as might be expected, upon their new neighbour. Mrs Bennet had been in a flurry of indecision all the previous night and that morning as to whether or not to be pleased, for Mr Bennet had not told her of the invitation he had offered to the young man, and consequently she had not had time to prepare herself for the introduction when it came upon her. She had been torn between delight that her home had been the first of all in the neighbourhood to be visited, pride in the hospitality she had been displaying at the time, concern that the gathering had been insufficiently well-defined in entertainment and attendance to please a monied bachelor’s palate, and upset that she had been given so little opportunity to speak to him. This last had been no accident, for Elizabeth, already having blushed at how her aunt and uncle had spoken in front of him, had been careful to make the introduction at a time when both Mr Bingley and Mrs Bennet must be very soon distracted by other concerns, and could have very little opportunity of conversation. 

To add to all this confusion of feeling, Mrs Bennet had, that morning, discovered a mark upon the still-drawn breakfast room curtains which she was sure had not been there a few days ago, and was in a state of some anxiety as to whether this had been seen by their neighbours generally and Mr Bingley in particular. She had, therefore, determined that as soon as breakfast was done, she and Mrs Hill would undertake a thorough examination of the curtains and hanging papers in every public room of the house, and studied the curtains with a gimlet eye at she ate. 

‘Still,’ she said, practically, ‘bachelors do not generally notice such things, so we may have a little time to repair the damage before Mr Bingley’s next visit, as it will take a little while for Netherfield to be opened up.’

‘I do not think him likely to give you as much time as you wish. He may prefer to move in as soon as possible,’ said Mr Bennet from behind his paper.

Mrs Bennet huffed at this. ‘What, a rich man like that to move in to a house that has sat empty for years, before he has engaged servants to air it or furnishing to refresh it? No, not at all. He will want it made ready first. But we must move quickly, even so.’

‘Netherfield is hardly a ruin. And, as you say, bachelors do not notice such things. He may want to stake his claim as soon as possible. I have heard some say he seems a hasty character,’ said Mr Bennet, glancing at Elizabeth.

Elizabeth chose to be occupied with her coffee, rather than respond to this.

‘A hasty character!’ exclaimed Mrs Bennet. ‘Nonsense. I expect it is only jealousy. Who said that?’

Mr Bennet only shrugged.

‘It was Lady Lucas or Mrs Long, I do not doubt it. It is hardly gracious of them, but I will not blame them for it, when we have had such a fortunate introduction. In any case, I do not credit it, but if he _is_ hasty, that is all the more reason for the curtains to be repaired as soon as may be.’

‘You expect him very often as a visitor, then,’ said Mr Bennet.

‘Of course, and why not?’

Mr Bennet’s amusement began to be laced with irritation, his patience with visiting already worn thin before the events of the previous evening. ‘It is only that I hope you will not expect _me_ to entertain him, my dear. I expect he will not make a very satisfactory companion in my daily activities. I gathered in our conversation that he has a great deal of time for sport, and very little for reading. I cannot imagine he can have much sensible conversation, and I cannot see that I should wish to go shooting with him, since I have no faith in his ability to keep from startling the birds away.’

Kari clicked his beak in Elizabeth’s ear in brief exasperation at this, and she reached up to smooth his feathers, the feel of stiff spines under her fingers pleasantly echoed in the weight of light, dragging warmth that her touch became on his body.

‘You must at least _act_ as his host, Mr Bennet. No one will expect you to talk a great deal, only a young man must have some excuse to visit with a family of ladies. You must not embarrass him, whatever you do.’

‘He has sisters, Mama,’ put in Elizabeth. ‘No doubt some of _them_ will come to stay with him, and then we may call on the ladies. I am sure my Aunt Phillips said something about that being a condition of his lease.’

‘There,’ said Mr Bennet, raising his newspaper. ‘You may visit the ladies, and leave me to my reading. Pray make no more plans for my visiting with Mr Bingley.’ 

‘Are you sure?’ asked Kitty. ‘He said that his sisters were nearly my age, when I danced with him.’

Elizabeth said, uncertainly, that she thought he had said some of them were old enough to have left the schoolroom, and one of these at was least unmarried. 

Mrs Bennet prodded her daughters on the subject until she had extracted all the information which they were able to recall of what he had said of his family, and what might be discerned from his conversation and behaviour of their manner and inclinations, her pelican dæmon echoing her queries in his booming voice. In this way, with the shared understanding of what each of them had gathered, a more complete picture of Mr Bingley began to be formed, and plans and expectations were measured against this mirage like a pattern on a tailor’s doll, Mrs Bennet now addressing herself to the question of how quickly a regular pattern of visitation might be set up between the two households. 

‘Four sisters and a stepmother, with two of them her own, and only the eldest married? Is that right, Lizzy?’

Elizabeth replied with more certainty than before that she thought so, her recollection growing more perfect with the conversation.

Mrs Bennet shook her head sadly. ‘And his poor father laid in his grave with his children so young. It will be the daughter of his own mother who will come to live with him, we may be sure. Better to be mistress of her brother’s house than usurped by her father’s widow. I always think it unwise when men who are already fathers remarry, but they will insist that their new wives will be as affectionate towards another woman’s child as they are to their own, and are surprised when so unnatural a plan fails.’

Elizabeth, who had actually heard Mr Bingley speak of his family, felt obliged to argue this. ‘It seemed to me that Mr Bingley spoke with real affection for _all_ his family, madam, without any such nicety of distinction as you have detailed. If the family lives separately, then perhaps it is out of necessity rather than preference. A young man with the means for it might quite rightly want the freedom of his own home, without in the least resenting his parent.’

‘A young man might,’ said Mrs Bennet, ‘but a young lady, residing with a stepmother who may be quite near her own age, perhaps still pretty and certainly accustomed to being mistress of her own house, with no bond of affection to encourage her to put her stepdaughter’s cause ahead of her own and that of her daughters, will feel very differently.’

‘That may well be true,’ said Elizabeth, ‘though Mr Bingley said nothing at all to suggest it. Consider, however, that he has another sister who _is_ married, and who is the eldest of them all. In a case such as you suppose, where the younger sister lived under such oppression, why would she not take advantage of the bonds of affection that must be present in _that_ relationship for her relief?’

‘What, and leave her father’s house in the hands of a woman who is no relation of the family?’

Elizabeth considered how to answer this, since this unknown lady must surely do just that in order to visit her brother’s house.

Mary, her attention half on the book she had been attending for the entire meal, asked how this could be so — was the family in York Mr Bingley’s family, or not?

Lydia, who had a good head for gossip, impatiently related a very abridged summary of the conversation that left Mary looking more confused than before.

‘I suppose,’ she said at last, ‘the question must come down to an issue of _fortune_. If Mr Bingley — that is, if his father — left a maintenance to each of his family individually or to all of them together. I can easily see how an inheritance that must be divided up, must in turn cause _division_ in the familial bond, and yet, I think, it is commonly thought that a large inheritance is better than a small one. The economies to be found in the receipt of a single sum must soothe the aggravations inherent in being obliged to compromise as to its use.’

‘Perhaps Miss Bingley is not fond of her sister’s husband,’ mused Kitty.

‘Perhaps Miss Bingley is not fond of her sister,’ laughed Lydia, with a sly look at her elders. ‘Perhaps she has been scolded too often about _economy_ and _compromise_.’

‘I hope that is not directed at me,’ said Elizabeth archly, ‘When just yesterday I gave you my blue spencer so you might have something new for the party. You may give it back if you are too sore to wear it, it being only a hand-me-down.’

This teasing damped Lydia’s complaints, for the spencer in question was a very pretty item of striped slate and deep blue which Elizabeth had scarcely ever worn. It had been made late one summer shortly after Kari had settled, and by the time the weather was warm enough for Mrs Bennet to allow her out of the house in such light clothing again his colouring had changed and the spencer had no longer suited them. Elizabeth had rather mourned its loss, and as it had proved too difficult to reshape for Mary or Kitty’s use, it had remained almost untouched until it had been given over to Lydia to sweeten her mood. It had performed this task admirably, and so Lydia said she would she said would rather not, since she had already thought of how she would take apart one of her bonnets to wear with it. 

‘And perhaps,’ she said, ‘I can use it as a pattern to make a new one — and I will even make you one too, Lizzy, only I must have some money for a bit of cloth for it.’

Mr Bennet, who had been doing his best to ignore his family in truth rather than merely seeming to do so, made a grunt of disgust at the quantity of expenditure considered necessary in the pursuit of a rich man, and he left the table, followed soon after by Jane.

  


The topic of Mr Bingley and his family continued a little longer after Mr Bennet’s departure from the breakfast table, but it was eventually exhausted by all except Mrs Bennet, who revisited any piece of information or speculation that came into her mind with lingering interest throughout the course of the day. 

She could not be faulted for this, it being the pleasantest topic she had the opportunity to practically dwell upon, but this dwelling had the unfortunate result of somewhat souring her feelings towards the gentleman. The mark on the parlour curtains had been investigated and found to be a stain, which, by its colour, had likely been made by the spilling of a cup of punch which had contained a liberal amount of red wine. This had been confirmed on the drawing back of the curtains, since the punch had penetrated so far as the panelling beneath the window, and here the nature of the offence was more readily discerned. A maid had been set to dabbing at it as soon as it had been found, while Mrs Bennet and Hill studied the rest of the house rather later for similar faults. Of these there were none, but the stain on curtain and panelling alike proved both prominent and indifferent to the attentions of soda water and every other usual remedy of housekeeping. Mr Bennet had been called upon to leave his study to observe the damage, and had been reluctant to agree to Mrs Bennet’s immediate proposal of new curtains, in no small part because Mrs Bennet had rapidly begun to calculate the cost and necessity of re-hanging curtains in the other parts of the house, so that newness in one room might not inadvertently highlight some shabbiness in another.

This reluctance on her husband’s part vexed Mrs Bennet very greatly, and the strain on her nerves produced by this was such that she soon began to complain of a headache, and, after a little while, was obliged to retire to her room, where the curtains were drawn, vexing her further, and she was attended with soda water and lavender oil.

Her daughters, interested though they had been in Mr Bingley, found that in Mrs Bennet’s returning again and again to speculating upon him they had consequently wanted for time to discuss their established neighbours, and, being long used to consider solitude and silence the most reliable cure for their mother’s various illnesses, decided upon making a visit to Lucas Lodge.

  


They were greeted warmly by the Lucases, all of whom were at home, though it was not the day on which was to be expected. Sir William had retired rather early in life for a man of such excellent health and energy, as he had felt it beneath the dignity bestowed upon him to continue in trade once he had received the honour of a knighthood. He was fonder of London and the style of living found there than he could regularly afford, and and chose to console himself with keeping up such town manners he could be managed in the country. Chief among these was the conceit of having set day at home, when their neighbours might wait upon them in the certainty of being received. Such habits were practical in London, where the well-heeled might expect to spend five or six days a week making rounds to call upon all of their acquaintance in visits of twenty or thirty minutes, but in the smaller circles of the country, where a trip of two or three miles was needed to visit even the closest of neighbours, visitors were fewer and the visits themselves correspondingly longer. 

Charlotte was in good spirits, her fox dæmon, Milton, greeting them all with quick chirruping ‘hellos,’ before curling neatly at her feet upon a little stool which was railed on two sides, the better to receive Elizabeth’s falcon dæmon without the necessity of Elizabeth fussing with gloves, and shortly after they were settled Charlotte asked if they had come to speak of Mr Bingley, and hear her opinion.

Kari gave a little squawk at this, and Elizabeth half-laughed. ‘I know I should, after putting you up to it last night, but in truth I am nearly as sick of Mr Bingley as Mama is. We have been talking him over all morning, and she has gone to bed with the headache.’

‘Poor man,’ said Charlotte. ‘To produce such a contrary result when he himself was all that is amiable. It is not what one would want, coming into a neighbourhood. What has he done to vex her so? I cannot say _I_ thought him in any way objectionable.’

‘Oh, he has instilled in her a wish to have him be on intimate terms with us, and Papa will not cooperate in her plans for seduction.’

‘Must he do so?’ said Charlotte. ‘I had thought with five grown-up ladies and Lydia in the house you might have managed a seduction without the aid of Mr Bennet.’

‘My mother fears he will be embarrassed by such a surfeit of attention.’

Charlotte, who had very early in life become too old for embarrassment, considered this skeptically, and said that had not been her impression the previous evening. ‘He may be a little uncertain, at times, but I do think him shy, exactly. I suspect he would rather be pleased by such attention rather than otherwise, but if you do not think so, then do not let me prevent you from being as cool as you choose. I will quite happily try whether he may be encouraged in another way.’ She said this lightly, as if she did not really expect to succeed, but would make the attempt nevertheless, and Elizabeth as lightly wished her luck.

‘Although,’ continued Charlotte, ‘I must not take your easy acquiescence to my intentions as representing your whole family, Eliza, and, in truth, I thought Mr Bingley looked _very_ often at you, Jane. What is your opinion of him?’

Jane shared a glance with her dæmon, perched upon her knee. He fluffed his plumage up, and Elizabeth was surprised to see a flush of colour in Jane’s normally tranquil cheek. ‘I am not sure I know enough to give one. I hardly spoke to him, although — although I did think him handsome. But Lizzy, you and Papa have spoken to him more than any of us, and you have both been so determined to find fault in him that I am afraid you must think him really objectionable somehow. Will you not say why?’

Charlotte, too, pressed her on this. Elizabeth, unwilling to confess how much of her irritation at being put forward had been unjustly directed at a man who indeed seemed perfectly amiable, at last elected to cite her own faults as the source of her criticism.

‘Oh, there is nothing, really. Mr Bingley seems perfectly pleasant and agreeable, and I will even say that he is handsome. There is nothing to object to in him, save that I cannot see how I would ever be able to provoke such a man, and that would provoke _me_ no end.’ 

‘You would prefer a disagreeable man, then?’ asked Charlotte. ‘I am ashamed of you, Eliza. I thought you more sensible than that.’

‘I hope I am! But I do not think myself so clever that I should like to be _always_ agreed with. I think I would come to fear such a man must be secretly ignoring me, or else be intolerably stupid.’

‘There is a great deal one might tolerate in conjunction with an agreeable temper worth five thousand a year,’ said Milton, wrinkling his muzzle contemplatively so his teeth gleamed for a moment. 

‘ _That_ is positively mercenary,’ said Kari. 

‘And not sound, besides,’ said Elizabeth. ‘When one considers how often it is noted in the morning paper how great fortunes are sometimes lost at the gaming table, and ancient families sunk in penury. Marrying sense and fortune is much to be wished, but the former ought always outweigh the latter. And if it should so happen that each party in a marriage possesses some of both quality, as indeed they ought, and it were enough that they need not depend upon marriage for the immediate maintenance of their health —’

’That supposes a good deal,’ interposed Charlotte, ‘but as your circumstance is at present midway between my own and Miss Bennet’s, I am intrigued by such a viewpoint. Do go on.’

‘If,’ began Elizabeth, again, ‘if the lady should have a greater share of sense and a smaller degree of fortune, she must consider carefully whether she would be willing to give the means of her independence irrevocably into the hands of someone less capable than herself.’

Charlotte only looked fondly exasperated at this, and said as to that there were a great deal of people in the world who managed their fortunes well enough without being overburdened by good judgement, and the larger the fortune, the more readily such a situation seemed to act in the possessor’s favour. A man who had only just come into his fortune might, perhaps, need careful consideration, but so long as a man could be ascertained to have existed for some years without the undue diminishment of his capital, such sentiments must be overly nice.

Jane agreed with both points, but felt obliged to point out that an easy temper ought not be confused with a lack of sense. Indeed, it seemed to her that an uneven temper — Jane would not even admit to the existence of such a thing as an _evil_ temper — where it might not be excused by ill health, or poverty, stemmed very often from a _lack_ of sense and good judgement. One might, therefore, as confidently assume an easy temper to stem from good sense as the inverse. 

To this, neither Charlotte nor Elizabeth could respond without insulting Jane, who was herself both good tempered and sensible, and, having gone so finely over the consideration of what might be theoretically be wished for in a husband, none of them felt able to return to discussion of a man they had met but once. The conversation therefore drifted to encompass the rest of the neighbourhood, of whom the ladies had earlier been so eager to speak. 

Charlotte had been out earlier in the day in company with her mother. Lady Lucas was very proud of her seat on the parish council, and did her position as much justice she could manage in visiting and talking of visits to those who dependent on charity. They had stopped at a number of houses, but their chiefest concern had been to visit a family of small means, who were known to the Bennets through the same route. The lady of the cottage had suddenly become unwell, and Lucases had distributed pie to the children and medicine to their mother. Lady Lucas, who had been called away when the young ladies had taken to discussing Mr Bingley, was drawn in by the discussion, and hoped that Mrs Bennet would visit the unfortunate family herself, or send some of her own medicines, as these were generally regarded in the neighbourhood as being equally as efficacious as those of Mr Jones the apothecary in treating all illnesses, save those of Mrs Bennet herself. A good deal of time was thus passed in describing the symptoms of the illness, that it might be accurately conveyed to Mrs Bennet, and by the time Lady Lucas had finished her description to her satisfaction, it was late enough for their continuing presence to constitute an imposition upon the daily routine of the household. 

As they were making their farewells, Lady Lucas expressed a hope that Mr Bingley might settle at Netherfield within the fortnight, so that Sir William might call upon him in order to invite him to the next assembly. This she followed with maternal artlessness by turning to Lydia, and expressing again her family’s pleasure at Lydia’s having stayed at the Lodge on the occasion of the last two assemblies, and saying warmly that she hoped Lydia was looking forward to doing the same again soon, since the other children had enjoyed her company very much. Lydia opened her mouth, but to the relief of her sisters, could apparently think of no reply cutting enough to make in response to the insult of being grouped with ‘the other children.’ She was, therefore, forced to reply with anodyne politeness, and was subsequently so struck with fury at her own good manners she was quite unable to complain until their party was out of earshot of Lucas Lodge, her dæmon taking wing as a furious woodpecker to better exercise her feelings on the matter.

  


They arrived home to a situation little changed from the one they had left, save for the presence of their Aunt Phillips. She had come to inform Mrs Bennet that Mr Bingley had called upon Mr Phillips early that morning to finalise the details of his lease, and almost immediately after had returned to London, entirely uncertain of when he was to return, though he promised it should be soon. Mrs Bennet, still unwell, had been glumly satisfied to know that her predictions of the morning had proved correct.

Mrs Phillips had been on the point of departure when her nieces had returned, but as they returned with the interesting news of an illness in the neighbourhood which she had not been aware of, she elected to stay until the details of the malady had been relayed to Mrs Bennet, who was nearly as interested in the symptoms described as she would have been had they been her own, and frequently pressed her hand to her head and breast to exclaim in sympathy at some detail or other. The illness itself did not interest Mrs Phillips overmuch, except as news, but she was fearless in hearing of it, and condescended even to make a stop on her way home with the medication which Mrs Bennet instructed ought be delivered thence from her still room. Mrs Bennet declared herself in no state to move from her bed, and required her daughters to run up and down stairs until they had located at last the thing she wished for, and a great many other bottles and jars besides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting, everyone. This chapter is a chance to get to know the Bennets and their daemons within this particular AU, and some worldbuilding that will pay off eventually. I've also made some minor edits to the previous chapters, which had a few typos, but nothing that makes a material difference to the plot.
> 
> I know Darcy's taking a while to make an entrance, but he should be on scene in the next chapter or two. In the meantime, eleven-year-old Darcy is a key character in one of the other prequel one-shots in this series (A Country Council of County Ladies), in which Lady Anne bickers with her neighbour Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and Darcy plays kiss chasey with Caroline Lamb. 
> 
> ellynneversweet.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lydia runs riot, Elizabeth has literary opinions, and Miss Bennet and Mr Bingley are exceedingly pleased with each other.

Mrs Bennet recovered from her headache over the following days with great reluctance, characterised by fretfulness and frequent relapses into sickness and trembling which were occasioned by her having to look each morning and evening at the curtains in her breakfast room. Mr Bennet paid as much attention to her distress as he usually did, and, as this impasse opened each day for the household generally, the Miss Bennets were keen to find opportunity to go out as frequently as possible, and busied themselves very much in visiting everywhere in the neighbourhood.

Mrs Bennet’s patient, they reported with satisfaction, recovered quickly — rather more quickly than her benefactress, in truth, for she had a good deal more to occupy herself with that could not be put off, no matter how vexing she might find her husband. Mrs Bennet was persuaded to condescend so far as to visit her herself one day, so that she might distract herself from the unsatisfactory state of her household, and in her absence her daughters continued to work in the the breakfast room, this being cooler than the west-facing sitting room on a hot summer’s afternoon.

‘I wish Mama would simply lift it away,’ declared Elizabeth, observing the offending mark in her mother’s absence. She had seated herself besides the drawn-back curtains, to take advantage of the shade, and now ran the heavy dark silk though her hands to examine it critically. Kari flapped a little lazily, fanning them both and stirring the curtain. ‘I’m sure she is quite capable of it — Jane, you remember how she took the stain off my dress before my first card party, don’t you? The one with the points about the elbows I liked so much. She lectured me for a full half hour and then fixed it a in moment.’ 

‘I remember you had gone outside to the park when you had been told not to,’ said Jane, fondly. ‘Though it was a pretty day, I recall. You looked especially charming with grass stains all over your knees and elbows. Quite the grown-up lady.’

‘It had been raining all evening, so it had a right to be pretty,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I asked Mama to show me how she did it last winter, when we were out dancing and I’d got a little wine knocked on me. I thought I managed it nicely, but when we went outside for the carriage we were obliged to wait a little for it to come around, and when it arrived I found my dress had put out little roots in a sort of fringe along the hem under my pelisse, and was trying to dig into the ground to be a cotton tree in the middle of the drive. Only the poor thing would have frozen overnight, and so would I if I’d stood still long enough to become stuck fast.’

‘How fortunate you run about so much, then.’

‘That is what _I_ said,’ laughed Elizabeth. ‘But my mother took rather a different view of it, and I haven’t dared try again. I wonder if you might manage it better — though perhaps I should not ask. I have still not forgot that stinging denouncement in the last issue of the _Friends_ against those who seek to put magic to petty domestic ends.’ 

This was a reference to _The Friends of English Magic_ , a periodical which enjoyed rather unwarranted popularity because it was the most reliable place to read an article either written by or quoting one of the two magicians employed by the government. Mr Strange’s irregular articles were amusingly ridiculous, with occasional germs of sense and a leavening dose of educated rhetoric, but it was otherwise a thoroughly useless publication insofar as pertained to the actual study of magic in any fashion, being more often than not a sort of dull extended sermon on the dangers of anyone, anywhere, at any time, attempting to gain any mastery of theoretical or practical magic without first somehow being an expert in both. It did, however, sometimes contain references to such historical persons and authors as might be interesting could one locate any _other_ work on the subject, and its polemics were on occasion so entertaining that Mr Bennet kept up a subscription despite his feelings, though he rarely bothered do more than scan the latest copy for any signs of authorial agitation. Elizabeth herself had no very high opinion of it, but she looked into it when no better prospect to read presented itself, or when she wished to make herself annoyed, and on occasion even joked with her father over some particularly waspish phrase she found there. Mary diligently combed each copy for points of future study, and regularly worked herself into knots trying to agree with all that was said within, which was a difficult task, since the editors were not above self-contradiction. 

Jane came over to observe things from Elizabeth’s perspective, thought she might be able to repair the damage, and said so, but then had a better idea, and wondered if Lydia might be taught the trick of it, instead. 

Lydia was eager to make the attempt, for she was exceedingly pleased at the prospect of succeeding at anything her elders sisters could not do, and did not even argue when Jane asked her to fetch some water from the stream that ran through the park, giving strict instruction that she must do this herself and not delegate it to any of the housemaids. Elizabeth had some private notion from something Jane had said that this might be a matter of Lydia being too young to have a settled dæmon, for this was reminiscent Mrs Bennet’s manner of performing this trick, and none of her older daughter’s dæmons had any particular affinity for water, and, sure enough, when Lydia returned, Priam was noisily engaged in being a gull, apparently uncaring that they had been splashing about inland and not on the coast. 

For practicality’s sake, Lydia was set to practising on some scraps of cotton from the mending basket first as one might practise a new stitch, and was soon smugly pleased to find both that she managed to restore the scraps she worked on to a snowy hue, and that they sprouted neither roots nor tendrils of any kind. She then proceeded to the curtain, Elizabeth giving up her chair, and sat, concentrating. A silver sugar bowl had been hastily re-purposed from the tea service, silver dishes being the traditional vessels used for such spells. This she carefully balanced in her lap, brim-full of clear water, and laid a hand over it, fingers not quite touching the surface of the water, and then with her other hand she tapped the curtain, as if she were pushing open a cracked door. For a single moment, the room felt odd, as it it were filled with the pressure of the bodies of a thousand thousand tiny moths, beating their powdered wings on cheeks and hands, resting on the sideboard and squeezing out from between the floorboards.

The stain, which had really been very obvious, was entirely gone.

‘There,’ she said sitting up with real pleasure. ‘I cannot believe the rest of you cannot manage it, but — oh!’ and she flew out of her seat, toppling the sugar bowl, which bounced away, ringing. Kitty went to pick it up, but snatched her fingers away and sucked at them. Lydia plucked frantically at her dress, holding it away from herself and flapping the wet fabric furiously. A puddle of water, stained almost black and now steaming hot, spread under the window. The curtain rippled, as if someone unseen were drumming their fingers on the other side. Then it shivered, and fell into an slumping mass upon the floor, looking like nothing so much as mass of old spiderwebs. A few drips of this substance clung to the curtain rail, shimmering. 

Elizabeth prodded this cautiously, after a moment, and found that her hand came away covered in clinging, cream coloured silk threads which bore no crease or flaw to betray their ever having been worked or woven in any way. 

Jane, who had been helping Lydia hold her dress away, from her skin, looked really dismayed. Lydia stared, roundly startled, and sat down heavily, her gathered skirt rucked wide over her knees to show the top of her stockings. Mary asked if it might be undone.

‘I do not think it can be much _more_ undone,’ said Elizabeth, examining the threads in the rather brighter light of the entirely uncovered window. ‘I wonder if we dare use this, or…’ a vision of a dress coming spontaneously unravelled in some public place came to her, and she hastily dropped the threads, brushing herself down to make sure none of them had touched her own gown. 

Lydia gasped in a way that suggested she might cry, and then began to laugh, almost howling with amusement, and it was some minutes before she had control enough of herself to say that Mrs Bennet was sure to be pleased, for, though Lydia had not at all meant to do such a thing, the curtains would surely need to be replaced _now_.

  


Mrs Bennet was not _precisely_ pleased, but Lydia’s accomplishment at least had the advantage of ending the stalemates over breakfast. Mr Bennet, entirely unintentionally, made a statement that more or less echoed his youngest daughter’s reaction, although his tones were rather more sarcastic, and having been forced to cede his ground on the matter of the new curtains, refrained from further commentary on the matter, aside from approving the replacements furnishings his wife had selected, which in truth looked very well. For her part, her victory, however accidental, cured Mrs Bennet entirely of her ill health, and she showered her husband with so much affection he was nearly driven to concoct a cause for quarreling again. 

Jane had been really distressed to think she might have encouraged Lydia wrongly, or caused Lydia to be upset, but Lydia’s pride in her success, misplaced as it was, was enough that Jane could not be upset overlong, and so she resigned herself to quiet disputes with her parents over who should be responsible for the purchase of the new fabric, with Jane arguing that her own fault in the matter, Mr Bennet flatly refusing to allow such a recompense, and Mrs Bennet attempting extravagances. 

This was complicated by a letter from their Uncle Gardiner had which arrived at about the same time. He apologised that Jane’s trunks, which had begun to be expected, could not be got to Longbourn for a little while longer than he had hoped, for there had been a dispute with the customs office over the how and when of their allowing him to unload the contents of his ship and this was not yet resolved. As the wardrobe Jane was presently wearing consisted of the contents of the valise which she had relied upon while travelling and such items as remained of what she had left behind, her old dresses having been largely cannibalised to one degree or another by her sisters, she found she had less and less to wear that satisfied anybody’s notions of nice dress. A visit to the drapers in Meryton was therefore necessary on both fronts, and deciding upon fabrics took up most of a day. As several pieces were needed, the finer nets and muslins that would be worn for dinners and assemblies were naturally taken to a mantua-maker, while the equally necessary but less complicated work of running up shifts and morning gowns was done at home.

Lydia could not but be reminded by such preparations of the coming assembly, and all those which were to follow, and so at every spare moment she turned with a passion to already well-thumbed books of zoological illustration, examining them diligently against the hope that Priam might find a shape he liked and so settle at last, and ignoring the few vague attempts her father made to suggest a wider range of study when she again invaded his book room to search vainly for something more. She had thought of several things to say to Lady Lucas the next time they met, in expectation of further condescension, and had so alarmed her two eldest sisters with the possibility of her actually voicing such remarks that they felt obliged to go to their father. 

Mr Bennet might have ordinarily ignored this, but he could not help but think of Lydia when she was so much before him, and so he at last declared that he would not attend the assembly, and that he had decided Lydia’s penance would be to stay home as well and attempt something useful by repairing the disorder she had done to his book room. This was largely a fiction of a punishment, as Mr Bennet felt two assemblies with each newly out daughter quite enough, and his opinion of Lydia’s ability to catalogue was low enough that he would by no means actually require her to complete the task he set, but at any rate there was a universal relief felt that she would not be obliged to accept the invitation to go to Lucas Lodge. 

  


About a week after the infamous incident, the tide of work that had succeeded it at last began to abate, and, as all were feeling in need of exercise and fresh amusement, it was decided by the Miss Bennets that they would walk to Meryton, either to call upon their aunt or to make purchases at one or the other of the various establishments a decently sized market town could provide. They observed a with interest an unfamiliar fine new closed coach-and-four as they walked about town, and were examining the window displays of the large book-and-print shop which served as the face of a local print works when they were hailed with great warmth, and turned to see none other than Mr Bingley descending the coach to come to speak to them, his daemon positively bounding besides him as he crossed the street. 

He greeted them with great cordiality, though perhaps a little more of his look fell on Miss Bennet than on the rest of her sisters, and explained that he had just that morning returned, having completed such affairs as he had felt necessary in town, including the purchase of a vechile better suited to long country trips than his curricle had been. Then, as they were on the point of entry, he followed them into the store, falling easily into the pattern of their conversation. When they expressed their pleasure at seeing him again so soon, and asked if this meant hew now meant to be properly settled at Netherfield, he answered that this was more-or-less the case, although he expected he must make a few adjustments yet — he would likely know better once he had had the chance to see the estate in all its aspects. 

‘But I confess I was very keen to be in the country again. I am usually happy anywhere I find myself, but I’ve been obliged to be in town in one place or another most of the year and have hardly stirred outside half as much as I’d like. I _had_ meant to take my sisters to spend the first part of the summer in the country, with a friend of mine and his sister at his home in Derbyshire, and a very merry party we would have made of it, too, only not very long before we meant to start north he begged off to attend an old book sale instead. We sent the girls off to Ramsgate for some sea-bathing instead, and, since my choice was then between staying in London or trailing about after a collection of unsettled girls, I found myself staying longer than I had intended. I did not mind, only I confess the air is awful by this time of year. I had almost forgot until I went back.’’

‘How shocking,’ laughed Elizabeth. ‘Your friend sounds a terrible host.’

‘Not so bad,’ said Mr Bingley. ‘He was very sorry for it, and treated me quite handsomely to make up for it. It is only that he _is_ fond of books, you see, and I am told it was a rare opportunity. I think he must have purchased half a dozen pieces himself, at least. It was more of a shame for the girls, as they’ve not travelled much, though I think the seaside must have been _some_ compensation. But I shall soon have my revenge, for I have determined to make him come to Netherfield that _I_ may set the course of our entertainments for the rest of the summer. There being such a fine a bookstore not very far away will help me in my cause, I am sure, though I shall insist on our enjoying _some_ sport.’

Mary Bennet asked, with a superior frown, if Mr Bingley was not fond of books.

He shrugged, his golden dæmon shaking herself as if to fling off the scent of a dusty old room so that her fur stood out in a ruffled halo. ‘Not so much as to spend days arguing over the price of some obscure old pamphlet. I do not dislike a good novel when I happen to look into one, but histories and treatises and suchlike bore me stiff, I am afraid — are _you_ much of a reader, Miss Bennet?’

Jane’s feelings on the subject of books were not so strident as might be found elsewhere in her family, which was fortunate, as such an opposition of tastes to Mr Bingley’s expression on the matter might otherwise have threatened a rupture in the conversation. She did not neglect improvement, but was satisfied with such pursuit of it could be managed without ignoring the dozen other things that must be done in the course of a day. The Miss Bennets were accustomed to spending few hours each day or evening listening to one or other or the girls read from some interesting book as they worked, but these were for the most part novels or ladies journals, rather than serious works, and then they often made slower progress than they ought, since as much time was usually spent gossiping about the plot as in discovering it. Mr Bingley had no objection to this little failing when it was described to him, as it was exactly the sort of sociable activity that would endear a story to him — he had little patience with reading silently when one might have conversation, but conceded a book shared could be a delight. 

Elizabeth had begun to feel a little sorry for speaking so harshly of Mr Bingley’s friend, whom she began to fancy from his description must be one of those gentlemen lawyers or rectors of small income who descended upon estate sales in the hopes of adding a few weathered tomes to their shelves. It had been charitable of Mr Bingley to stay with his friend, who perhaps had no hope of travelling in the same style as himself, rather than finding some other enjoyment more to his taste, and had been still more generous to arrange a seaside visit for their sisters so that they might not feel themselves neglected. 

Not wishing him to feel offended by her easy condemnation, she therefore said, ‘Your friend will surely be pleased to have the use of the library at Netherfield when he is able to visit you. I have heard it is very fine, although of course it cannot have been much added to in recent years.’

‘In which case Meryton has a circulating library as well. They have all of Mrs Radcliffe’s works,’ added Kitty, eagerly. 

‘I will more likely be roundly scolded for not purchasing something to add to the collection while I was in town, I expect. Especially since I heard of Netherfield at the auction, after all. Some of the gentlemen there were speculating whether it might not come on the market in a similar way, although of course it would not be near the same scale — apparently that one stretched out to forty-one days, in the end. Though I must not make a martyr of myself and say I sat through them all. I was ready to flee by the end of the third day, and by the end of the first week I had plotted my escape.’

This was too singular a figure not to cause a connection, for those who followed the course of such events, and Elizabeth asked, a little confusedly, if she had been mistaken. She might be in error — she did not mean — had Mr Bingley perhaps been speaking of the auction of the Duke of Roxburghe’s library?

Mr Bingley replied that he had — he had not realised it was so widely spoken of outside of town as to merit his giving the name. He did not wish to seem a braggart, especially when he had had so little interest in the goings-on of the sale itself. And, in any case, it was an auction any gentleman might have attended had he the patience for it — most of the rooms in the late duke’s London residence had been closed off, save the rooms in which the auction had been held, and those had had most of the furniture removed to make space for the bidders. 

This put rather a different complexion on their discussion, and for a moment Elizabeth was not sure how to react. The library in question had held what was generally believed to be the finest collection of rare books in Great Britain, and had been the result of a lifetime’s work by one of the first men of the kingdom, though it was now sadly undone by his heirs. The auction itself had generated enough excitement that it had made its way into the newspapers with great regularity, as much for the enormous sums of money that had been offered and the scandals that had been generated as for the treasures that had been discovered in the course of the sale. Families had fallen out with one another over rival bids, and it was rumoured more than one duel had been fought. In a few cases it had been reported that amounts greater than the annual income of Longbourn had been offered for a single book. New books of magic — by which was meant very old books of magic — had been offered up, to Elizabeth’s particular fascination, and for a while these had seemed likely to cause a more serious schism than all the rest, for it had been breathlessly reported that Mr Norrell had publicly cut his pupil’s wife after she had attempted to bid for them, and a few wild columns had wondered whether Mr Strange might go so far as to return from Spain to challenge his mentor over the honour of Mrs Strange. He had not, though whether this was because he would not or because he could not had not been settled to anyone’s satisfaction, the army being hardly likely to allow the second of England’s magicians to return from the front to attempt to destroy the first. 

Mr Bennet had been so interested by these reports that he had gone so far as to visit London for the first time in many years to attend a few days of the auction, and had found such entertainment in his observation of the items sold and the arguments engaged in that he almost failed to regret the bidding had been so fierce he had not managed a purchase himself. It was a topic Elizabeth would have liked to hear more on, but as Mr Bingley had declared himself to have no great interest in it, she could hardly press him. 

She was at a loss for what to say, but that hardly mattered, for Jane began to speak again. 

‘I hope you do not think reading and shooting the only entertainment with which you might welcome your friends to Hertfordshire. One neighbourhood cannot hope to match London in every way, but we manage some society, and there are dinners and assemblies enough amongst us that one need not feel always at loose ends.’

Mr Bingley replied very eagerly that he had heard just that not four hours ago. Sir William Lucas had called on him that very morning, nearly as soon as he had returned, and, accounting themselves enough introduced for such an honour, had invited Mr Bingley to the next assembly. Mr Bingley professed himself excessively fond of dancing — he had liked the dancing at Longbourn the night they had been introduced very much — he was sure he would like an assembly still more. He had thought she danced well — was _she_ fond of dancing? She was.

From this it was a very short step to all but promising he would ask Jane to dance at the assembly, and Jane all but promising she should accept. 

Mary, whose look of disapproval had not wavered since Mr Bingley had proclaimed himself only moderately fond of books, now wandered off to follow her dæmon. His head had turned about with an increasing frequency and lack of subtlety to observe the shelves that stood beyond the reach of their little party, and before the conversation had advanced very much further he had gone so far as to fly a little way away, hopping along the shelves and calling very softly to Mary. 

Kitty, who had smiled a great deal at Mr Bingley, and giggled only a little less than Lydia had laughed, looked rather as if she would like to say how much _she_ liked an assembly, now she was allowed to go, but he and Miss Bennet had fallen into one of those rapid, stumbling conversations in which two people begin speak a great deal and say very little, while all the while entirely ignoring everything else around them, and Kitty could not manage to gain enough of the attention of either to interrupt in a natural way. Elizabeth, pleased and a little embarrassed at the way in which they had suddenly become surplus to the conversation, turned abruptly to Kitty and Lydia, and asked if they might like to look over the prints with her. 

About half the shop had been given over to prints, space being at less of a premium than stock in a market town like Meryton, and of these, the majority were either studies of animals from various angles, satirical cartoons on society and politics, and portraits of the various important and interesting people of the day. The shop itself managed the production of a weekly gazette, as much business as the local gentlemen and merchants could provide, and such extra runs as London publishers thought worthwhile when books from their back catalogues continued to sell well after the town presses had been reset for a new publication. 

The son of the proprietor sat behind the counter, reading steadily from an ink-fouled manuscript, his clientele barely acknowledged by a wave of his untidy terrier dæmon’s tail from where she dozed on the counter. 

Under the glass of the counter were several folios of prints, helpfully displayed besides a pair of sharp, pointed shears and a little container full of pans of watercolour paints. These prints consisted of a collection of illustrations of the parts of various animals, which, when cut out and pasted together according to the instructions listed alongside, would form what was promised to be an accurate depiction the animals which were shown pasted in somewhat briefer detail upon the cover. Those on offer included a spiky sort of lizard, which the title proclaimed to be a thorny devil, a finch, a python which might be coloured in a number of scale patterns, and a heavy bird of paradise with a long untidy tail and close, pale plumage on the back of its head, so that it seemed somehow reminiscent of a middle-aged lady in a morning cap who had not yet dressed her hair. This last, which included several pages in which both sides had been printed to represent this free-standing plumage, was available for the extravagant price of five guineas, and was presumably only saved from dust by the countertop. Lydia lingered over these for a some time, chatting with the inattentive attendant, but as her interest in these items did not extend to making sufficient economies in other areas, she at last drifted away towards her sisters, who, having no need for such things, had gone to look through the cartoons and pamphlets. 

Kitty stopped to admire a copy of a portrait of Lord Byron, dressed as though to attend an ancient bacchanalia in elegantly drooping robes and vine wreath, his melancholic gaze diverted away from the presumed revelries before him towards the distant landscape. His leopard dæmon lounged beside him in a manner almost indecent, her bold pale gaze fixed on her audience. A gold ring shone in one tufted ear, and Anselmi hovered a breath away to observe it, his little body radiating fascinated disapproval. 

‘Do you think he did that _himself?_ ’

Elizabeth considered the verse quoted below, which bespoke a man allegedly sick of revelry, and wondered why in that case he had allowed himself to be painted in such an attitude. 

‘Perhaps he had a doctor do it, or an apothecary.’ 

Kitty shuddered theatrically. She, like her sisters, had not been seriously ill since the early years of childhood, and she had that outsized horror of medical treatment that is sometimes found in the young and healthy.

‘Lizzy, Kitty, look,’ Lydia demanded in strident tones, and Elizabeth turned to see Priam, in the shape of the thorny little lizard, adopt an attitude of seeming petrification, his spiked little head thrust out and waggling slowly upon stiff shoulders to show a round, gelatinously pale tongue. He began a dull, croaking speech on the subject of virtue, in a voice that was entirely of his own invention but in which a good deal of Mary Bennet’s opinions might be recognised. Elizabeth frowned and tried to hush her, but Kitty undermined her attempts by dissolving into a fit of giggling. By the time he reached his punchline of ‘in Forrrdyce’s _Sermons_ ,’ the exaggerated crackle he had adopted caused him to cough, and he raised a clenched, spiky little foreleg theatrically to his mouth in a gesture too human to be seen in any true animal. A laugh then managed to escape Elizabeth’s best efforts to contain it, and she turned away in an attempt to master herself, but was not quite quick enough to avoid seeing the effects of her unintended encouragement. Lydia appeared entirely delighted with herself, and her dæmon at once became a clownish little parrot with red patches on his cheeks who pranced from one foot to another on her shoulder. 

Lydia turned her head and kissed him. ‘That is better. You were very ugly before. It was a mean trick to pull on me, to try such a shape. What if you had got stuck?’

Elizabeth pressed a hand to her mouth, and dared not look directly at Kitty, who had pinned her lips together, her shoulders heaving with barely suppressed amusement.

‘That was _not_ very kind,’ said Kari, whose customary fierce expression was rather better than Elizabeth’s own for delivering a reproof.

’You laughed.’

‘We did, but…it was still not nice.’

Lydia pouted, and looked slyly towards Jane and Bingley, who were talking with apparently as much enthusiasm as they had ten minutes prior. ’They do not look as if they are discussing Fordyce’s _Sermons_ ,’ she said in a loud whisper. Neither Jane nor Bingley gave any sign in the least that they had heard this.

‘Come and look at the books, if you do not want the prints,’ Elizabeth urged. ‘Perhaps we will find something better than Mr Fordyce for Mary read and talk at us all about. A history, perhaps. One of the northern ones.’ She glanced over her shoulder at Bingley, who was talking in his open sort of way while Jane gave him a pink, pleased look. 

It took some time to find a book that they might all agree on — they already had Lord Portishead’s _A Child’s History of the Raven King_ , and though Mary would have happily read either of the two scholarly magical biographies he had also penned, Kitty and Mary proclaimed them horribly dull in comparison. Elizabeth would not have minded either, but in the first place they were not precisely what she wanted on this occasion, and in the second, such texts were rather more costly than novels, being of limited interest to the reading public. Her own preference was for a work on the restoration, since the merry monarch was generally understood to have a made particular effort to charm and coax the north under his stewardship. This promised a good deal of entertaining anecdotes, and had the advantage of being a book she would not scruple to put on her father’s credit rather than her own, but Mary objected with affected delicacy, on the grounds that Charles II had been rather too merry to be proper, as least as material for the edification of young ladies. 

They settled at last upon Wordsworth’s _Guide to the Lakes_ , this being reputed to be a very good description of travel in certain parts of northern England (though, admittedly, not Yorkshire). It seemed a little like Gilpin in its admiration of the picturesque, which pleased Elizabeth, and as Mary had already attained the accomplishment of knowing several quotations of Wordsworth by heart, she had the happy notion of adding to these.

Jane and Bingley were still talking, with no apparent want of subject, but, seeing her sisters lingering over the process of making a purchase, Jane broke off at last. Mr Bingley lingered over his farewells, but eventually admitted he must have probably some business elsewhere, though he found he could not specify what precisely that might be.

  


It was only natural, on the way home, that Jane’s sisters might comment upon what seemed to them such an obvious and immediate liking on her part. 

‘It is very convenient that a rich young man should come into the country just when you are back and in a position to marry,’ giggled Kitty. ‘One would almost think it was magic. Will you teach the spell to me, Jane?’ 

Lydia sighed. ‘If it is magic, it is monstrous unfair. There you stand with five thousand pounds to your name, and the rest of us nothing but a thousand _after_ mama dies, and you summon a husband like a fairy spirit for yourself. Why could you not get rich husbands for the rest of us? I know you must hurry, since you are getting old —‘

‘Positively ancient,’ put in Elizabeth. ‘The rose in your cheeks has gone all blowsy, Jane. Shall I get you a stick?’ She gestured at the trees which shaded their path. 

Lydia stuck out her tongue. Priam became a crow and rattled a convincingly grave-like caw. ‘You are no better, Miss Lizzy. Twenty and you’ve never even had a proper favourite to hint at! I will be quite cross if you are still deciding between all the men when I am finally allowed to come out, for it would be horrid unjust have to compete with you, though I shan’t think it much a competition if you get on any further. Lord, it is so difficult to be the youngest of five ladies! You might as well do me the courtesy of ceasing to dawdle.’

‘I shall try,’ said Elizabeth, drily. ‘But Jane, if you _have_ summoned Mr Bingley —‘ 

Jane blushed enormously at this. ’I certainly have not! Lizzy, it is really too much to say so, pray take it back.’

Elizabeth only grinned at this, and took it back, but could not resist adding, in a musing sort of way, ’Well then, since you have not, I suppose I cannot demand you change his ways — except after the _ordinary_ fashion of persuading young men to do one thing or another. But really, apart from making sure he looks into a good novel now and then, I cannot yet provide you with a list of repairs to make.’

Mary looked alarmed at this, and said that it was not a woman’s place to argue with and provoke her husband — she hoped her sisters had not being entertaining such improper notions. One could guide, of course. One should, indeed, for had they not all observed more than once how indolent boys were transformed into honest and upright men by the gentle reproofs of their intended? Mr Harwicke the chandler’s son, for example. He — 

Lydia yawned very loudly, and so directly in Mary’s face that Mary broke off to yawn also; and as this in turn derailed her train of thought, Jane was, with a slightly desparate look, able to ask firmly enough after their purchases that the subject might be thoroughly changed until they returned home, where other distractions might then prevail.

  


Jane returned to the subject of Mr Bingley of her own accord that evening, when she and Elizabeth were ensconced alone together, and confessed, cautiously, that she liked him very much. Elizabeth was inclined to be very much amused at this, for she had found herself lingering so much on the subject that Jane’s modest declaration seemed underwhelming in comparison to her own speculations on the matter. 

She soon checked herself, however, for her delight in making plans of matrimony been delayed from the first by the circumstance of her own fortune causing her to regard courtship as something that must belong to the future, and then further moderated by the examples of unhappiness she had seen daily in her parents, such that her enthusiasm for marriage was by consequence rather less than might be usually expected of a pretty and gently-born young lady. For a sister she loved as well as, or rather better than, herself, she was therefore inclined to consider the matter most carefully, but she could not help but be swayed by Jane’s evident pleasure in his company. Mr Bingley was certainly pleasant society, and she thought his character straightforward enough that it would soon reward further study. She therefore gave cautious approval to Jane’s liking him, and looked forward with interest to when she might observe him again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stealth Darcy! We're getting there. 
> 
> In the meantime, feel free to visit me over at tumblr (ellynneversweet.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Elizabeth encounters a disagreeable man.

It so happened that the very nearly next opportunity Elizabeth had for observing Mr Bingley was the assembly in Meryton. She had little cause to repine, however, for the circumstances promised the opportunity of seeing him in some of his usual company, rather than as a stranger come amongst strangers.

Mr Bingley’s doings in the days after his return they heard of from their neighbours, whose interest in the new arrival was not much diminished by the rumour that had got about of how he and Miss Bennet had spontaneously talked with each other for the better part of an hour — practically in middle of the street! — upon his properly arriving in the neighbourhood. His new carriage had been sent away, empty, and, since no flaw could be spied in its motion or paintwork as it worked its way up the turnpike road to London, the gossips of the neighbourhood naturally assumed it had been sent to collect some guest or other. 

Mr Bennet chose this inconvenient moment to wait upon Mr Bingley. This necessitated the use of his own post-landau, and thus the removal of several of the Longbourn horses from their work on the farm, these animals having spent enough time in close proximity to Mr Bennet’s dæmon that, under the control of a groom riding postilion in partnership besides his horse dæmon, they were not spooked by Hypatia’s presence in the carriage behind them. Mr Bingley was prompt in returning the call, on foot no less, which had not been Mr Bennet’s intention in giving it at such a time, and so had the dubious pleasure of having his attention so deliberately monopolised by his host for the duration of his visit that he saw Miss Bennet and her sisters only enough for them to all bid each other good afternoon. Mr Bennet kept his true opinions of Mr Bingley, whatever they were, to himself, and this was a source of frustration for which Elizabeth could only solace herself by remembering that Mr Bingley had seen Mrs Bennet not at all, as she had gone visiting herself on both occasions. 

The day of the assembly, Mrs Phillips, who had been seriously put out that Jane had not seen fit to invite Mr Bingley to her house when they had met in Meryton and thus allowed her aunt the pleasure of observing their conversation, at last reclaimed her primary position as the source of rumour in the neighbourhood. She, arriving in a flurry of bandboxes with the evident intent of making her toilette at her sister’s house, had the pleasure of confirming a new piece of information — namely, that Bingley’s carriage had been seen returning to Netherfield with a company of ladies and gentlemen _that very day_ , and so an introduction to these was generally anticipated at the evening’s entertainment. 

  


The day was, therefore, one of speculation, the preparations for the assembly taking up much of the afternoon. 

Lydia lingered more and more about the dressing rooms of Longbourn as the afternoon progressed, making herself helpful as helpful as she might; running unprompted to the park to collect flowers for chaplets and corsages, only half of which could be coaxed into the hair and bosoms of her sisters before they begged off further adornment, adjusting pins and flounces, and generally alternating between her pleasure at seeing so many pretty dresses, bouts of despair at her own exclusion, and drooping misery at the prospects the evening held for herself. 

She especially admired Jane’s new gown. Having been commissioned in a hurry, there had been little time for the usual embroidered ornaments that they were accustomed to work themselves, and which would no doubt be added in time. Jane had compensated by using a richer array of fabric than the she had worn before, selecting a green sarsnet that flashed iridescent yellow when she moved, elegantly damped by a silver gauze overdress. This Lydia would insist upon attempting to pin up to show the bolder colours, even as Jane was steadfast upon letting it down, so that all in all it gave something of the look of the fluttering undersides of new leaves. 

Elizabeth, having rather more of a wardrobe, put on a previously-worn dress of close-cut white jaconet, which she had taken some time to work over with swagged and frogged silk cord about the sleeves and hem. To this had been added additional embellishment in the form of what she had been amused to see described as a medici collar, by which was meant a low standing frill of van dyke points over the shoulders and guarding the back of the neck that rather reminded her of ruffled feathers. 

Lydia, standing back, gave the whole one last critical look, and pronounced herself well satisfied, and sure that Mr Bingley could never have seen a prettier sight in his life. 

Mrs Bennet, to no apparent end given Jane’s present paucity of wardrobe, proclaimed her dress a little dark for an unmarried lady, though it was really no darker than might be worn by any girl who had been out more than a year. 

‘But you look very well too, Lizzy,’ said Priam, who was a nimble-fingered washing bear again. ‘If Lydia were able go to about always in whites and assembly dress, I should hardly mind at all if I were always as colourless as Kari, even if you _do_ almost look like you’re in mourning when you forget to wear enough ribbons.’

Kari gave Priam a narrow look, and and thanked him shortly for the compliment. 

  


They took the post-landau, which, by consequence of its having been designed for Mr Bennet, obliged the four older Bennet girls to cram together in the long forward-facing seat so that they might accommodate the balance of the carriage. Mrs Bennet sat backwards, stroking her dæmon’s neck, talking low with him and her sister. 

Mary attended to Wordsworth by the glimmer of early starlight, the covers of the landau having been left down mid the calm of summer nights. She jabbed Kitty with an elbow turning a page. Kitty jabbed her back. 

‘Must you read _constantly_?’ 

Mary gave to understand that if she had to spend the evening at an assembly, she wanted to give herself something to think about while she was being bored stiff.

‘You wouldn’t be stiff if you danced. And you’d be asked to dance if you had some real conversation, rather than always trying to be cleverer than everyone.’

Mary shrugged. 

Jane, intervening, asked Mary what she had found of interest so far. This produced a long-suffering sigh on Mary’s part, since summary was inevitably anathema to her, even when it necessarily preceded a detailed explanation of her chosen topic. That Jane had probably hoped in part for some piece of pleasant conversation that she might use with Mr Bingley was apparently _not_ considered in the lengthy excerpts she received, which were mostly about places admired first for their natural beauty and second for the legends that they had centuries ago been gates and bridges to other lands — fairy, usually, but sometimes Italy. These gruesome legends tended to involve the kidnap of some lovely creature or other, dragged away to adorn unwilling some strange revelry. 

Mary obviously felt some fellow-feeling with the subjects of these stories, and Kitty, not especially kindly, asked if that was why Mary was determined to make herself dowdy. 

Elizabeth, trying to hide a yawn, pushed her cloak back a little in a effort to catch the wind on her face and revive herself. The landau had the deep bench seats that were the mark of a gentleman’s carriage, but without a large dæmon to lean against, the ladies were obliged to stretch out almost as if they were laid together upon on a chaise longue if they did not want to be jolted, and it was easy to start to doze. Mary’s style of rhetoric was not precisely _bad_ , for she did not stumble or use malapropisms, but it did not excite.

Kari took wing to enjoy the lazy cushioning of the thermals above the road.

She tilted her head back to watch him, a white bird against a darkening sky; the very inverse of the banners of the old northern king — argent field, raven volant — that had been illustrated fluttering so romantically upon the pages of Wordsworth. 

‘Do you think Miss Watson will be there?’ she asked, idly.

‘I cannot imagine she will miss it,’ said Mrs Bennet. ’ _She_ cannot afford to sit by when new gentlemen arrive in town.’

  


They arrived too early, and so lingered in the cloak room, Mrs Bennet calling directly to the attendants and other guests to discover who was come already, chivvying her various daughters to check some item or other of their toilette, tying and re-tying the pretty lace jesses her dæmon wore in elegant symmetry of her own cap, trussed _à la polonaise_ for ease of walking indoors. After they had waited as long as Mrs Bennet’s machinations could manage, and so discovered the lay of the land, Mrs Bennet looked them over critically one last time, and and reached up to pinch at Jane’s cheeks and fuss at her hair, though Jane had not in truth had the least need of it when they had entered the room, and had certainly already had ample chance to repair anything she thought necessary. Jane, anxiously caught between a worry that she was somehow disordered and a wish that they might proceed to the assembly room proper, gave Elizabeth a look in which pleading might be discerned. Elizabeth, once again tugging her loose kid gloves over her elbows, then begged her mother leave off, lest she spoil the setting of Jane’s curls.

Inside the assembly room, the effect of Mrs Bennet’s fussing became obvious. Mrs Bennet had a habit when she was at her needlework of touching the windows at Longbourn with a spell that captured and redoubled the light, so that a room lit by no more than the meanest transom window could seem to be filled with the sparkling refraction of a hundred mirrors. Something similar had been done to Jane, who seemed fairly to glow in the candlelight, the shine of firelight on the turn of her hair and the curve of her cheeks somehow brighter and realer than it was anywhere else in the room. Patroclus apparently observed this, since he whispered urgently to her, and she at once turned, a little alarmed, to her sister.

‘It is lovely, and quite alright,’ whispered Elizabeth. ‘No one will be able to take their eyes off you, but you are hardly lit up like a drury lane actress. Good evening, Mr Goulding.’

Mr Goulding speedily asked Jane to dance, and was accepted with good grace, as could hardly be otherwise if she were then to manage the dance she had nearly accepted from Mr Bingley.

Mr Bingley, however, was not yet present, for despite the delay in the cloak room, the Bennets remained amongst the earlier arrivals, and so he could not bear witness to first appearance of the loveliness engineered for his notice. 

  


The principle room of the assembly at Meryton was large and open, as befit a room designed for such a purpose, and betrayed all the usual hallmarks of proper upkeep and wide public usage. Wide low couches were placed about the outer part of the room, these useful for those whose dæmons were large enough to wish to share a seat, while beyond these delicate chairs with upright backs were available for those with humbler requirements. Above these, the panneling had been hung about with shelves and perches, sculpted in sympathy with the wall sconces, for dæmons to light upon to escape the crush.

Over all this hung the pride of the assembly, a wide net of gilt-bronze filigree shaped rather like a shallow dome, carrying braces of candles upon its outer rim and secured by several study chains so that it would not shift about; a device known generally as a pannier. This device, which in more fashionable establishments bore glittering swags of paste that gave more than a passing resemblance to the chandeliers from which they had evolved, had lately become necessary in order to accomodate the more complex dances of the present day, these augmented steps having come about in consequence of the great array of dæmon forms now expected in companies of young people of any accomplishment whatsoever. Its function was not dissimilar to the exposed rafters found in ordinary houses, or the false rafters which served the same purpose in grander estates; this being, in essence, to more conveniently allow for the stylised movement of winged dæmons, who otherwise were restricted in their flight by the lowness of the ceiling and the availability of convenient resting places. In the case of country dancing, where those winged dæmons had once been often obliged to huddle against their person while their ground-dwelling counterparts twisted through the dance, or else fly only in undirected loops above the dance floor, such a device as a pannier allowed for a third or even fourth layer to be arrayed upon the basic steps of a dance, bird dæmons catching themselves upon the wide-spaced bars to turn and dive and rise again, tracing the narrow twist of a wrist or wide turn of a train as best suited their forms. These layers, comprised of dæmons on foot, human counterparts, and then lesser and greater winged dæmons, and which required a precise calculation on the part of the master of ceremonies as to the placement of couples in the set to create a harmonious pattern, were almost as beautiful to watch as to join with, having something of the quality of a murmur of starlings. 

The office of master of ceremonies was filled that evening, as was usually the case, by Mr Morgan, an upright and cheerfully unromantic former soldier of middle years who had set himself up as a dancing master in Meryton after his retirement from the infantry, where he had attained the rank of sergeant. He had, in addition to giving classes on those days when the assembly rooms were not otherwise in use, had taken himself and his gray mongoose dæmon to Longbourn twice a week for several years for the private lessons which were an essential component of the proper education of young ladies, and which were quite as economical with a family of five as sending the girls to Meryton. 

Elizabeth, especially, delighted in dancing in such a fashion, for she was herself nearly as agile as her dæmon, and at the moment the music was struck up she would take him on her hand to fling into the air, his wings unfurling in the echo of her arms to streak untouched through a crowd of songbirds, then turn to stoop and tumble back to her while she spun through the steps below, dancing with herself as much as any partner.

She danced the first with Mr Richard, a clerk of Mr Phillips’ whom she had often been in conversation with before. He danced with neat precision, his barn owl dæmon quite as capable in the air as Kari. This was just as well, since his conversation, when there was breath to spare for it, was solemn and encased in pedantry, and he had a habit of perceiving unintentional error where deliberate comedy was intended, and hastening to correct the apparent mistake. On such an occasion as an assembly, where her spirits were inclined to be high, Elizabeth was much inclined to joke, but she disliked correction as much as any young lady, especially when she did not perceive herself to be in error, and so she found she must resort to her stock of serious conversation for the first part of the evening. 

Her luck continued rather better with a request from Mr Morris, who in spite of his stout brown figure was a lively, springing partner. He had an easy manner that did much to assist him in his work, for he acted as the land agent for most of the surrounding estates, including Longbourn, and was as comfortable talking to gentlemen and their families as he was with their tenants, though he had something of a preference for his own concerns as a point of discussion. His dæmon, a stocky dog with a coat of shaggy blueish merle, was an enthusiastic and capable dancer, but large enough, in comparison to to the joint reach of herself and Mr Morris, that Elizabeth more often than not found herself uncomfortably stretched from toe to fingertip to provide a large enough space for her to pass under their arched arms, and relieved when the dance offered her the opportunity to skip back a pace or two. 

  


Partway though the evening, at a time that was rather past ‘fashionably late’ and veering rapidly towards ‘rudely tardy,’ the set that the greater part of the room had been occupied in came to an end, and a new party entered the room under the cover of the applause that followed this conclusion, having clearly waited for the end of the dance to minimise the interruption their entry would cause. 

Elizabeth, near was the top of the set and by consequence far from the door, busy applauding the musicians and enjoying the thanks of her partner, was not at first aware of this, but as the movement of the dancers around her turned to a more purposeful tide towards the newcomers, rather than the usual untidy eddies of ladies and gentlemen searching for new partners, she could not help but be swept up a little in the crush. 

Mrs Bennet had Jane pinned to her side, talking rapidly, and Elizabeth rushed to join them, talking unblushing advantage of the way her mother’s waddling pelican dæmon forced a break in the stream of people. Mrs Bennet caught her up, and declared her gratitude Elizabeth had joined them, which rather surprised Elizabeth. 

‘Lizzy, how good you are here. Mr Bingley has arrived with his party, and _you_ are to occupy him. I am sure you can manage it — speak to him for ten or fifteen minutes. He knows you are splendid dancer, let him know you have no partner for the next.’

Elizabeth, all confusion, protested this. Surely Jane — 

‘Do not argue with me, pray. Mr Bingley has brought a gentleman with him who is twice Mr Bingley’s consequence at _least_ , a lord or as good as one, so Jane must dance with _him_ first, and let me hear no nonsense. You must _not_ let Mr Bingley ask her first. Oh, I could strangle my mother with her own purse strings, to put us in such a fix. Just think, two gentlemen, _two_ , and I have but one daughter available to present.’

‘Mama!’ 

Elizabeth looked at Jane, who, loveliness undimmed, nevertheless had a tight look of incipient disappointment about her eyes. She yanked, as discreetly as she could manage, at the arm her mother held tight beneath her own, and was unsuccessful.

‘Mama, please. Let go. Please,’ she felt a little tug, as light as her skirt catching on her petticoat, and realised she had left Kari upon the pannier, waiting out the applause. ‘I must go back. Kari —‘

‘Can turn on a ha’penny. Do not try such tricks with me, my girl. Call him at once.’

To this Elizabeth protested she would not, she certainly would not. It was one thing for she and Kari to dance in such a fashion, but to have him stoop to her upraised hand in such a press as they found themselves in would be the height of exposure. Did her mother wish to make her ridiculous? She feigned more discomfort than she felt, expressing her distress at being apart from her dæmon.

Mrs Bennet only pinned her arm further in response, knowing full well that half the length of the assembly room was a distance perfectly within bearing, though her insistence that it caused no discomfort at all was not quite true. It felt rather like pulling a hairbrush through a tangle — uncomfortable, not yet painful, but the promise of tearing sharpness building beneath the increasing pressure. 

To add veracity to her claim, Elizabeth turned her attention to her dæmon, observing the whole with agitation behind and above her. This was a difficult trick, and one she had yet to properly master, the effort of walking while seeing from an elevated and flattened perspective sometimes enough to make her to stumble. She did so now, and Mrs Bennet chided her impatiently. 

Though the introductions unfolding by the entrance the to hall were as yet invisible from her own angle, she saw as Kari did, though imperfectly, overlaid upon her own vision as if she were watching a busy street though a rain-washed window laid with transparencies, three men and two women, a little space opening around them as they moved. The women, expensively dressed, had dark, tidy dæmons — some long little mammal crouching on the shoulder of the first, a bright ribbon collar about his neck; an elegant snake curled about the bare arm of the second, verso to the arm she had laced through Mr Bingley’s. Bingley’s dæmon, always an easy step or two apart from him, now seemed to saunter with all the arrogant consequence of a gentleman, for such were clearly his company. The gentleman carelessly escorting the first lady was a tall and rather stout, his dæmon some sort of dark, humpbacked sow. 

The other gentleman, taller still and unencumbered by a companion, gave her to understand Mrs Bennet’s manner at once, for _his_ dæmon was an enormous spotted cat who moved with such alarming grace as to excite the attention of any room, even were it not generally known that such big cat dæmons were the jealously-guarded province of the aristocracy. 

She really started in surprise then, her confusion not only caused by the blind movement of her feet, and blinked hard to clear her head.

Jane, ready to protest on Elizabeth’s part if not her own, attempted to reason with her mother. There was no need for such a rush — it would take but a moment for Elizabeth to return to the other end of the room and compose herself. That would be the better course, really — who knew how many people Mr Bingley had yet to meet? The introductions must take some time, she was sure. It would be unreasonable to monopolise him when they already had the pleasure of his acquaintance.

‘All the better to meet his friend,’ said Mrs Bennet, unmoved.

Then they were unmoved in truth, for she had not ceased in her forward progress the whole of the conversation, and they had reached the doors of the assembly room, the crowds parting before the inexorable insistence of Mrs Bennet’s dæmon clacking and shuffling his determination. Sir William Lucas and Mr Morgan greeted the Netherfield party, the former with all the overwrought condescension of an ostensible host who finds himself outranked, the latter with the unflappable civility of a man who knows the subtle danger of a ballroom to be nothing to the field of battle. 

Mr Bingley introduced his party — his sister, Mrs Hurst, arm-in-arm with her husband, his sister, Miss Bingley (and Elizabeth thought from the slight emphasis he used, and the way Miss Bingley lifted her chin, that she must be the eldest of the unmarried sisters and so _always_ Miss Bingley, never Miss Caroline), and a Mr Darcy, of Pemberley, in Derbyshire. Mr Darcy seemed to hang back, a little detached from the polite addresses he was ostensibly a party to, though he bowed at the appropriate moment, and his dæmon condescended to greet those of Sir William and Mr Morgan. 

He was quite as lovely as his dæmon. 

There was not, of course, any requirement for the _outward_ shapes of any person’s two halves to match, but there was nonetheless something of a similarity between man and dæmon, some unconscious, rangey echo in the height and the length of limb, the upright carriage of the whole. He stood very still, but she, sand and sable, curled tidily against his side, winding around his legs ’til he laid a hand on her neck in what seemed a practised motion. He glanced absently over the crowd before him, his still features somehow compelling in a way Mr Bingley’s handsome, pleasant face had not been. 

Elizabeth felt her indignation at her mother’s actions tenfold at that moment. She could, of course, speak to Mr Bingley — they had already been introduced. She could not, however, speak with propriety to any of the rest of his party without an introduction, and _that_ could not be managed without her dæmon. Faced with a choice of monopolising Mr Bingley before his own party, or snatching Kari out of the air, either of these an absurd display of self-important discourtesy, she chose a third option. She would say as little as possible, and hope that Mr Bingley would be as attentive to Jane as before, that she might soon slip away and reunite with Kari in some less ostentatious fashion. 

  


She did not have to wait long. Mr Bingley made his way towards them almost as soon as Sir William drew breath for a second round of introductions, and neatly sidestepped all the plans which had been made for him by begging Jane to tell him whether she was engaged for the next before they had even ceased to shake hands. She was not, and then, she was. 

This object achieved, Mr Bingley turned to Elizabeth and saluted her in a friendly fashion that she returned with real gratitude, regretting everything she had ever said about his habits of immediate action. 

‘But please, allow me to introduce you — ’ he began, and then broke off in realisation, Miranda giving a little whine of frustration.

She laughed as lightly as she could manage. ‘You must excuse me. I have been too busy amongst friends this evening and have quite forgot myself —‘ a tired pun, but he laughed at it, ‘since my mind, like yours, was only on the next. And so, you see, I must go and find my partner. Pray do not concern yourself on my account, I am sure I will see you anon.’ 

She loosed herself from Mrs Bennet’s embrace, and begged her mother’s forgiveness — she would not stay to so awkwardly curtail the conversation — she was sorry for her thoughtlessness in coming over so — she hoped her oversight would not be seen as a deficiency in her education. She then gave a hasty curtsy to the rest of the party — Mr Hurst goggling at Jane, Mrs Hurst ostentatiously ignoring them, Miss Bingley apparently too absorbed in talking to Mr Darcy to purposefully imitate her sister’s attitude, Mr Darcy himself absently sharing a look with his dæmon — and fled as fast as dignity permitted.

  


She was fortunate enough to seize upon a partner in the person of Mr Jones, who did the duty of an apothecary for Meryton, and who had the easy attitude towards introductions held by those who know their professions will, sooner or later, make their acquaintance indispensable. He made for agreeable company, for, though he was occasionally called upon to dismiss the fears of Mrs Bennet on the likelihood of her having contracted some illness then current in her circle, Elizabeth herself had no very recent unpleasant remembrances of his capuchin dæmon prising open beaks to dispense medicines that would make the acquaintance uncomfortable. Further, since his profession provided him both with a very great part of the local conversation and the discretion to know what he ought and ought not disclose, he was always sure to provide pleasant and rational conversation, though an unfortunate consequence of his profession was that he was too busy to be more than an adequate dancer, and they were therefore the third and least active couple of their part of the dance; and rendered still more inactive by the way his little capuchin dæmon sat for the most part upon his shoulder, unwilling to risk her paws against a misstep. Kari, irritated, chose to remain aloft.

She was obliged to sit out after the dance ended, since she had by that time begun to run through the stock of gentleman present — never very many — and the addition of two more ladies to the pool of eligible partners had only lengthened the odds. Mr Bingley gamely attempted to redress this by dancing every set, but as Mr Hurst had disappeared into the card room almost as soon as the party arrived, and Mr Darcy apparently did not dance at all, someone must be caught short. 

Snared so by circumstance, she perched instead on one of the slender seats pushed against the wall and spoke to Charlotte, to learn what news she might have gleaned about the newcomers. She had left Kari upon the pannier, that they might at least have the pleasure of _observing_ the dance — and of talking a little with Patroclus, whose conversation between the steps was all of Mr Bingley and his golden dæmon. She was a little aggravated by the difficulty she had had earlier that evening in catching her dæmon’s viewpoint, and had wondered, in the aftermath, if they might not have managed something more subtle and successful in thwarting Mrs Bennet with the benefit of accurate observation of both viewpoints. This doubling of sound and sight was rather easier seated, and she determined to attempt it again, Charlotte bearing only a little impatiently with her vagaries when she occasionally lost track of their subject. 

Mr Bingley, who had been dancing with Jane (again) and who had reached the end of the row, now turned, drawing her eye — or, rather, Kari’s. His dæmon hopped neatly out of the dance to dash herself with surprising heaviness against Mr Darcy’s dæmon, who was curled tightly against his side in what appeared to be a customary pose. Such perilous proximity was apparently a force of habit between the two gentlemen, for this shove merely caused Mr Darcy to shift his weight a little as his dæmon turned her head to issue a reproof to her assailant, who danced away with every sign of amusement.

Mr Bingley, having achieved such notice, but no change in his friend’s position, now left the dance himself. 

‘Come and dance, Darcy,’ said he. ‘I must have you dance.’

Mr Darcy cooly replied that he certainly would not. His dæmon made a point of settling, sphinx-like, upon his feet in a gesture of feline immovability, her haunches forming an elegantly exaggerated double arch. Elizabeth noted with amusement that his dæmon, though of a more delicate build than she had thought such courtly animals generally were, managed to extend herself to take up a very great deal of space between her outstretched forepaws and the gently twitching tip of her long tail; a person would have to step carefully to avoid accidentally intruding within the gentleman’s space. 

‘You will waste the evening.’

‘I would waste the evening standing or dancing. I assure you I find nothing more tiresome than to parade in strangeness and confusion for hours, only to find oneself in the same place one started. It is an otherlandish folly. Rational society ought have left it behind long ago.’

‘It is none of those things,’ said Bingley, ‘for the pattern is straightforward enough when one knows one’s own steps, and there is no easier way to become acquainted with a group of people than by dancing. Wait, I will find you a partner. I saw Miss Bennet’s sister sitting down — Miss Elizabeth, that is, who was standing with Miss Bennet and her mother when we entered. I am sorry to have missed the chance to introduce you then, but…well, you were distracted, I think, and the dance was about to start. That is an introduction even _you_ will not disdain, since Miss Elizabeth is witty as well as pretty, and will be able to talk to you about the Roxburghe library — I mentioned it to her in conversation, and I think she was better informed on the subject than I. You can begin now, and by the time the next set starts you will have enough to go on with.’ 

‘I will thank you to do no such thing. I saw the lady, and cannot think her looks in any way so remarkable that I should wish an acquaintance with a person who hides their dæmon in company. It shows neither courtesy nor breeding.’

‘I should not think he was _hiding_ ,’ huffed Bingley, looking over his shoulder to the dance to check its progress. ‘I am sure I saw him about — he is a raptor of some sort, I recall — a hawk or falcon. Miss Elizabeth is sociable; no doubt she was in the middle of some confidence with a friend and was caught up in the jostle when we came in. Even _you_ cannot expect the whole world to always be waiting upon your notice.’

’A hunter.’ This was from Mr Darcy’s own dæmon. There was a note of disdain in her voice that suggested the word _fortune_ might easily have been inserted in this statement. He continued in a similar tone. ‘That is scarcely better. Such freedom of conduct in a young lady can hardly be correct.’

‘You are absurd.’

‘And you are about to miss your cue. Pray return to your partner — _she_ , I grant you, is a diamond of the first water. I would not have you disappoint on my account.’

Elizabeth, whose borrowing of Kari’s attention had granted her a better command of this conversation than her position rightly deserved, was for some minutes in too great a confusion of humiliation to explain what she had overheard. She attempted to console herself with the notion that those who eavesdropped were always bound to hear something they preferred not to, but it was little use in the face of such a severe, and, it seemed to her, unwarranted condemnation. Worse, until Mr Darcy had moved sufficiently far away, and the dance had progressed again, Kari was unable to return to her without seeming to respond obviously and immediately to this criticism, and so perhaps betray the attention they had paid to this insult.

It was not until this was managed, Kari discreetly dropping down from the pannier to wrist and lap and muttering grim imprecations about the desirability of scratching out eyes which saw fit to insult _his_ Elizabeth, that she felt at all equal to overcoming her mortification. 

Charlotte, who would not be put off, listened to the relation of this story with a wry smile, Milton even seeming rather amused at such a pronouncement upon ladies whose dæmons took a hunter’s shape. This pragmatic sympathy cheered Elizabeth, as did the welcome information that Mr Darcy had apparently already managed to insult several of her acquaintance with his arrogant manner, and it was not very long before she was able to wonder with sharp amusement whether Mr Darcy objected to such things as _hunting dæmons_ on the grounds of rank, for the dæmons of the ladies of the _bon ton_ , which his own cat dæmon proclaimed him a member of, were scarcely less predatory than those of their fathers, brothers and husbands. 

She could not help but be pleased, however, that she did not manage another dance that evening. She did not wish to make a display of herself, but if she _had_ , her pride in her own abilities would not have allowed her to chose to do so in the wilted and creased atmosphere of the boulanger, footsore and out of temper as she found herself to be. 

  


Mrs Bennet she chose not to tell of the insult to her character, knowing that the currents and eddies of gossip would result in her learning of it sooner or later. She was content to let it be later, but it hardly mattered — Mrs Bennet had caught the general mood of the assembly towards the gentleman, and was quite happily spread the miasma amongst those who had not been present, as she did to her husband when they returned home. She therefore spoke at length both of his reputed wealth and his observed rudeness, the way he had scorned dancing, even with Jane, the way he had spoken only to his dæmon and his companions, and the way his dæmon had slighted any overtures with a turn of her streaked face.

Mr Bennet, amused by this scorn, was content to allow the subject to continue, and even to make some contributions when he learned the particulars of how the man had chosen to discard the habits of polite society.

‘An odd character, to behave so. What is his dæmon?’

‘A big cat,’ said Mrs Bennet. ‘As if he were a lord, when he is only a _mister_.’ She sniffed.

Mr Bennet quirked an eyebrow, and asked if some further detail than this might be provided — there were many cats in the world.

‘A spotted cat,’ Mary provided, which was still not precisely helpful, dappled coats of varying degrees of subtlety being hardly uncommon in such dæmons. 

‘A leopard,’ squeaked Kitty, blushing with some sudden remembrance, ‘like Lord Byron.’

Mr Bennet laughed. ‘A rake, then! Steer clear, little Kitty. You’ll come off much the worse for an encounter with _that_ sort of man.’ 

Elizabeth was not so certain, and said so — true, she had no point of comparison, but she had read enough works of classification to make her wonder. Leopards were heavy, powerful creatures. Mr Darcy’s dæmon had seemed more gracile than robust; the liquid joints of hip and shoulder too exaggerated in motion; the coat somehow too heavily and simply contrasted. 

Mr Bennet, hearing this, declared his younger daughters the silliest girls in England, and instructed Lydia to fetch down a work from the shelves, which she managed quicker than usual after _their_ evening’s activity. The creation of works describing big cats had come under revision some years ago, when the craze for works of classification and illustration had properly begun, and the House of Lords had hastily and pointedly passed laws restricting the creation or commission of such texts to such persons as had been granted letters patent to do so by the College of Heralds. That this had been so readily accomplished in an age of free and varied presses had largely been the result of a tightly-worded grafting of the restriction onto much older laws, which had from the time of the much-married Henry forbade the display of true animals of such shapes to any unsettled person unable to display the appropriate legal pedigree. 

The work Mr Bennet wished for was an older one, which he had gloatingly preserved against such restrictions as had been imposed after its printing, and had almost no illustrations, which consequentially meant it received comparatively little interest from the younger ladies of the house. It was filled with long, boring descriptions of the big cats, their shape, attributes, cultural and mythological significance, and the notable families or individuals whose dæmons had shaped themselves so. Noble families, in particular, so often successfully impressed upon their children the desirability of imitating their forebears in the shape of their dæmons that the sight of a person’s dæmon was often almost as telling as the sight of their arms or livery. Lydia was hinted and chivvied through the text until she found the entry Mr Bennet wanted, and scowlingly read the description. 

Mr Bennet asked if it seemed to fit, and it was agreed to be accurate. 

He then took the book in hand, closed it, and replaced it upon the shelf. 

‘Well?’ exclaimed Mrs Bennet. 

Mr Bennet asked her what she meant.

‘What manner of creature is she? Mr Bennet, you do tease me so, it is not fair.’ 

Mr Bennet turned to Elizabeth. ‘Lizzy? Come now, my dear — _jubatus_?’

‘Oh!’ said Elizabeth. ‘Yes, of course! Though the latin implies rather more of a mane than I noticed in her case, but perhaps that was the fault of the angle of observation. Or, perhaps, since we are speaking of a known individual, it is because we should more properly say she is jubata? Half the descriptions in that book begin with _panthera_ , so it is terribly vexing to come across such a grammatical exception. He appears to be contrary in every possible way.’

‘That, I think, is for the use of jubatus as an adjective rather than a noun; but in any case it depends on whether we are speaking of the dæmon alone, or the whole individual. Wild beasts male and female were generally held to belong to a single common gender by the romans, while those which were domesticated and thus bred were given separate grammatical genders — and I believe the Persians _did_ occasionally tame such true animals as we are speaking of, Lydia, do get me that dictionary — no, the other, the _latin_ , Lydia — so if seperate grammatical terms exist, as they may do in this case, and we are speaking of the dæmon _alone_ , then we would use the extant feminine; but if one is speaking of the whole individual then the usual practice is to defer to the sex of the human concerned, both in the singular and the plural. Which is unusual, in that it is one of the few cases in which the latin treatment is more complex than the french, as formally in _that_ language the masculine plural always takes precedence when referring to the individual as a whole, for men and women alike, unless they are one of those cases where the sex of the dæmon and human are the same, and feminine. But even then, the French usually prefer to refer only to the sex of the man or woman in question and thus include the dæmon by inference, rather than elevating the dæmon to the position of being a divisible part of the whole. Descartes’ philosophical insistence on regarding the human and the dæmon as necessarily distinct from one another is hardly without detractors; and even he resorts to the use of diminutives for clarification — ’

Kitty groaned. 

Mary rubbed the bridge of her nose, looking as if the negus she had drunk had begun to catch up with her.

‘In that case,’ said Elizabeth impatiently, who had begun to feel she would rather go to bed, ‘I suppose _guépard_ must do for our speech, considering the way in which he seems so entirely satisfied with his own company — one cannot much imagine from his behaviour that he could ever be so at odds with his own self-regard as to be inclined to give up even a _grammatical_ precedence. But, as I found him most unfair in his dealings, I am inclined to be perfectly unaccomplished on the matter and resort to plainly vulgar english, since our own tongue’s term seems rather more equal to my impression of him.’

Mrs Bennet, whose command of latin was not equal to such an immediate recollection of meaning when faced with the obscure terminology so delighted in by biologists, had been waiting with no little impatience for her husband to make his way back to the point. She had not forgotten everything she had been taught as a girl, however, and so when the language turned to that of a modern romance — at least, one she sometimes corresponded in — she grasped the their meaning at last, and was able to translate for herself the the more prosaic term _cheetah_. Then she repeated Elizabeth’s quip on the subject of _fairness_ very often, and with a great deal of satisfaction and variation. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting, everyone. This goes out to everyone who wanted to know what kind of magic Mrs Bennet got up to, and, I guess, to those of you who were wondering when Darcy would arrive ~~and make an ass of himself~~.  
> For the record, if Mr Bennet sent you googling while he was telling his shaggy-dog story, cheetahs were initially described in 1777 as _felis jubatus,_ and didn’t get their current scientific name of _acinonyx jubatus_ until 1828, so here in 1812, referring to an old book, the terminology is a bit obscure. Shout out to regina-del-cielo, who helped check my extremely amateur latin (<3, thank you).


End file.
